


Prince with a Thousand Enemies

by DoveHeart



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Do I need to mention the background Judith/Nader or do we all accept this is canon, Eventual Happy Ending, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, I PROMISE THIS TIME, M/M, Mutual Pining, Politics, Slow Burn, So Much Politics, Sylvain-typical promiscuity, When I say slow burn I mean the slowest burn you've ever seen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29159199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoveHeart/pseuds/DoveHeart
Summary: A loose, mostly standalone, Verdant Wind route sequel to Pandering.---They say your school days are the best days of your life. Claude certainly made the most of them - working hard, playing hard, sizing up the future ruling classes of his neighbouring countries. He even had the kind of brief, consuming fling with the school playboy that a heart can run on for years afterwards.And that might have been the end of it, had they not graduated directly into the opposing sides of a war.Five years later, Sylvain is just a lonely blue pin on a map in Claude's office, but the gods of fortune are already rattling the dice in their cup. It's time for the game to begin.---Tags will be updated as I add chapters, because this is an absolute beast of a story. First draft completed, chapters edited and posted weekly.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 24
Kudos: 36





	1. 5 Years Time

**Author's Note:**

> I know what you're thinking. "Hey DoveHeart, you said this is a Verdant Wind sequel, but Pandering clearly takes place during an Azure Moon route!" I can't promise there'll be a parallel Azure Moon sequel, but at this moment I'm planning for there to be. I really want to play with this story from both of those angles.
> 
> Also I've been working on this story for a few months, and the idea of posting it terrifies me. I hope you don't hate it too much.

_All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you._

_\- Watership Down, Richard Adams_

The magic-enhanced candlelight was stinging Claude’s eyes by the time the meeting finally ended, and the counts and margraves began to shuffle and stir, pushing their chairs back and stretching cramped muscles. The recorder at the end of the table scribbled another hasty few lines and then she too was done, quill down, grimacing and arching her fingers. The fire was built high to warm a larger assortment of old bones than usual, cloaking the room in a heavy fug of heat and smoke. Official roundtables and their limited accessibility weren’t enough when the whole length of the Alliance border was under threat. Every landowner in Leicester was here, and if the Great Lords didn’t like it, then Claude was happy to pretend not to notice.

“Judith,” he said quietly across the table, and when she caught his eye, inclined his head in the direction of the door.

She nodded, eyes suspicious, untrusting as a hawk.

They left quickly and she walked by his side in the bracing winter chill over the castle walls to Claude’s own quarters. She’d never be one for trotting at his heels.

“You can’t keep putting it off forever,” she said. “You’re going to have to do something about Acheron eventually.”

“It’s not a good time to take him off the Bridge,” Claude replied. “Not with the bandit raids, and not with any of the rest of it either.”

“I never said anything about taking him off-”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s what it’ll come down to in the end, isn’t it? You’re right. He has no control over his lands.” He sighed, fumbling in his pocket for the key to his office. One of his offices, anyway. His grandfather had carved out little hidey holes in which to work all over the castle. “If I’d had a few more years…”

“To do what?” Judith asked, blowing on her hands.

Claude hung up his coat and held out his hand for Judith’s cloak, which she handed over like she was making a chess move. The easy smile was back on his face, here among the smell of his books and wood varnish and parchment. Back on his turf.

A few more years, to gently shuffle Acheron off the board… Ah, Raphael would have held the Great Bridge of Myrddin but good, given the chance. “It doesn’t matter now.” He sat down in his grandfather’s chair, which still held the old man’s shape in its worn cushion. “Unless you want the Bridge?”

“I’ll pass, thank you.” Judith took the other chair. “This isn’t what you wanted to talk to me about, boy.”

He’d earned that one. “Nope,” he said.

“Then what?”

“How’s the Galatea situation?”

“Unchanged.”

“They’re still running border patrols on the Daphnel side?”

Judith nodded, a little impatiently.

Claude picked up a carved horse and rider he’d been using as a paperweight for a large map, and ran a finger down the rider’s ivory bow. “How minimal a border presence do you think you could maintain without neglecting it completely?” he asked delicately.

Judith raised an eyebrow. “I’d rather not turn my back on a territory that treats me like a hostile presence.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to turn your back on a border with anyone. Just, say we were to assume they were an ally.”

“That’s a very bold assumption.”

“Call me tenderhearted,” said Claude. “Galatea’s a spooked horse right now and I’d rather not get kicked, if it’s all the same to you.” He’d also rather not antagonise them into splitting their forces over two fronts if Edelgard lost patience and decided to come a step closer to the Alliance. Things were much nicer for him with Galatea in the way.

“And what if they turn on us?” asked Judith, irritated now.

“They won’t.”

“ _And if they do?_ ”

“Then we dust off Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“On a strictly need-to-know basis, I’m afraid.”

Judith sat back, arms crossed. “I get the feeling that’s not what you wanted to talk to me about either, is it?”

Claude set the horse statue down and blinked innocently at her.

She pointed to the corner of the room, at the packed bags he’d left right where she’d see them. “Where are you going?”

“Oh no,” he said. “You caught me.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, boy.”

And that was enough poking the bear. “I’m actually going to do you a little favour,” he said.

“I don’t suppose it has anything to do with all those troops of mine you’ve just conveniently freed up from border patrol?”

Claude laughed. “A very astute observation,” he said, “but no. Put a pin in them, though. I might ask for them later.” A joke that would hopefully stay a joke; there was no one in the world right now he owed more than Judith, and she didn’t need anything else on him. “Look, you lost your seat at the roundtable, but frankly you need to know what’s going on, because that’s your border.” And she’d serve nicely as a counterweight to Count Gloucester’s incessant grumbling, as long as he didn’t leave her in there too long. “I thought about trading you for Goneril for a while, because Holst’s stuck twiddling his thumbs over the Almyrans right now, but you know me. Don’t want to upset anyone.”

Judith laughed mirthlessly.

“Anyway, I have something important to do, so I was hoping that while I’m gone you could stand in for me at the roundtables. Nardel’s watching my lands, so you won’t have anything to do there, but I can’t imagine anyone would be happy bowing and scraping to one of my retainers, however capable, so I need someone to represent me officially.”

“How long?” she asked.

He waved the question away. “I’m taking the wyvern, you won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“If you keep pulling stunts like this then they’ll start thinking you don’t take your position seriously, boy. You need to learn to delegate. That’s as much a part of leadership as your clever schemes.”

“What!” protested Claude. “I can delegate! I’m delegating the whole Alliance to your care while I’m gone!”

“The world isn’t safe for little lordlings to ride out and do as they please anymore.”

“Dukeling, but who’s counting?”

“You know what happened in Faerghus. They executed that fool boy, title and all.”

Claude took a moment, nodded. He hadn’t thought so directly of Dimitri in a long time. He was only a series of long-rippling consequences now, the man himself all but vanished under the surface of history. “You know I’ll be more careful than that.”

“I know you’re another fool boy with a title. And if we lose you, we lose all your clever Plan Bs and Plan Cs, and even half of your Plan As, come to think of it.”

“No one else can do what I’m setting off to do,” said Claude. "I don’t say that lightly.”

Judith shook her head. “You won’t be judged by me, and that’s your lookout. But remember this - you aren’t the Alliance. You’re the leader of the Alliance, and our job is to abide by your judgements and follow your vision-”

“Now _that’s_ a phenomenon I one day hope to witness with my own eyes.”

“-but we aren’t your props, or your tools, or your weapons. You’re not a king or an emperor. That’s not what the Alliance was founded on, and you’d do well to remember it.”

Claude, contrite and impatient all at once, lowered his eyes to the map on the desk, with all the territories of Fódlan marked with coloured pins to follow the shifting ebb and flow of alliances and conquests the last five years had brought. The gold-backed pins of the Alliance stood fast for now, with maybe a slight wobble in the direction of Gloucester, and the Empire’s crimson showed the creeping tide of their progress across the continent. There were only two pins in Faerghus blue, where Fraldarius and Gautier were still holding out.

Claude’s information network could barely stretch so far, and when he did get news from Gautier it was hopelessly out of date, but he knew that some time probably weeks ago, Sylvain had still been alive and fighting.

“I want you to know I’m taking this very seriously,” he said to Judith, his eyes still on the Gautier pin. “And believe me, it’ll be worth it for what I’m going to bring back with me.”

“I won’t ask. I assume you want it to be a surprise,” said Judith dryly.

Claude only smiled.

*

“The hills are on the wrong side,” said Sylvain.

“What are you talking about now?” growled Felix, clearly still on edge after the disaster at Arianrhod, even though it had been days ago and Sylvain had been completely fine after a little white magic.

Sylvain brushed snow off the wall and rested his elbows on the stone for the brief moments before the chill seeped up through his layers of clothes. “I just feel like I’m looking the wrong way. I’m used to all our fortifications facing north, out of Faerghus, not pointing right into it.”

“What does it matter?” asked Felix.

“It doesn’t. It’s just weird.”

Late watch was the worst in the winter. Sylvain, son of the borderlands, had thought he was used to being watchful, but when the sun set early and they lost all visibility he realised how much of the Sreng border was maintained by a kind of national muscle memory, trained by time and habit on both sides. This was a taste of what it must have been like when that border was new, a line drawn on the ground still smelling of blood and freshly-turned earth. Every light sparked up down below set dread and adrenaline pulsing through him, even the ones that were almost certainly (but never certain-certainly, especially after Count Rowe’s betrayal) allies.

Sreng didn’t feel like much of a threat at all right now, actually, faced with the immediacy of the Empire’s ambition. Sreng felt almost like an old acquaintance, someone he could feasibly turn to and say, _Hey, I know we haven’t got on very well in the past, but life’s short. Why not bury the hatchet?_

“Do you think Ingrid’s okay?” he asked.

“I’m sure she’s fine. She doesn’t have to clean up after you for once.”

Rude, but Sylvain held his tongue. “I don’t like the thought of her stuck in Galatea while her father sits on the fence.” She’d begged him not to so much as write to her, in case their correspondence was intercepted and a tie between Galatea and the rebel territories drew the Empire’s attention.

“What do you expect me to do about it?” snapped Felix.

“Oh, pretty much this.” Grumble and glare and eventually stalk off to imagine killing something. The classic Felix coping strategy.

“Can’t you just talk to yourself instead of bothering me?”

“Whatever you say.” Talking to Felix was often quite like talking to himself anyway, if less helpful.

The sun was setting, the sky ablaze and the snow dull on the ground, bluish-grey in the shadow of the hills. Sylvain’s nerves tautened in anticipation for the long night’s unknowns. One day the Empire would tire of them. Or Cornelia would succeed in turning all of their allies against them, and their forces would melt away or someone would get stabbed in the back. More strongholds would be given away like gifts, the way Count Rowe had given away Arianrhod.

He glanced at Felix, pacing the length of the walls and snorting clouds of steam like a horse. Was it really a good idea to put the Gautier and Fraldarius heirs on watch together? Probably not, but they weren’t in a position to pick and choose who would work and who would sit idly indoors, and besides, who else was going to agree to work with Felix?

Sylvain watched the sun kiss the peak of a hill, fizzing suddenly with restless energy and nobody to work it off with. His mind conjured visions of warm, damp skin, fingers, lips. He fantasised the post-coital heaviness as hungrily as the act itself. Empty. Relaxed. The feeling hung out of reach. Instead his nerves seemed to be buzzing with lightning. Late watch was the _worst_.

“Hey, Fe-”

“ _What?_ ”

“What do you think we’re doing here, really?”

“What are you _babbling_ about?”

“I mean what do we do when… you know, when the Empire does come?” He had to choose his next words carefully. This was the closest to disloyalty that Sylvain had ever felt. “If Dimitri really is dead…”

“Of course he’s dead.”

“...what are we fighting for?”

“Why, are you lost without someone to die for?” The venom in Felix’s voice was real. “I expected better from you.”

Sylvain laughed, the sound too loud in the gathering evening. “You know what, you’re probably the first person in five years who hasn’t heavily implied that I should put ‘die for the cause’ on my to-do list. I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Felix curled his lip. “If we die, the cause dies.”

“No arguments here.”

A long shadow rippled over the snowdrifts, followed by the black silhouette of a wyvern against the fiery sky. Something leapt in Sylvain’s chest at the sight of it; memories, longing, an old sting. Hope, maybe.

“Oh, great,” grumbled Felix. “More competition for the livestock. I’ll go report it.”

Sylvain shook his head. “It’s not wild.”

“How do you know?”

“Too early in the year for wyverns, right?”

“I don’t know, is it?”

“Have you ever seen a wild wyvern during the Ethereal Moon?”

“How should I know? Sylvain, what is this?” Felix sounded alarmed now, and Sylvain tore his eyes away from the circling shape in the sky. “It’s not him.”

“Not who?” He knew exactly who.

Felix grabbed him by the collar. “You know it’s not him, right?”

“I don’t know who you mean.”

“Sylvain!”

Sylvain pulled himself out of Felix’s grip. “It was five years ago. Calm down. I’m not pining away waiting to be rescued.”

He could practically hear Felix’s anger simmering. “I’m going to report the sighting,” he said. “And you’d better still be here when I get back.”

Sylvain waited until Felix was halfway to the tower before shouting after him, “If I’m not, ask after me at Audrey’s, or maybe Kirsten’s. I haven’t decided yet!”

*

Claude was back at Garreg Mach with a day to spare before the Millennium Festival would have been held. He was as good as his word to Judith and careful as a mouse, flying low and fast and making good use of the information his network had given him about the movements of the enemy. It was good information, and up to date, and the chance to verify it almost made the journey worth it in itself, even if the rest of it yielded nothing.

The scars of the attack five years ago were still livid in the stone, showing the precise incisions the Imperial army had made through the monastery’s defences to hobble it just enough. Vast swathes of it still stood whole, though overgrown and neglected. A good reminder, Claude thought, of just how little you had to slip to let the enemy in and render thousand-year-old halls and homes and self-sufficient industry utterly worthless.

He left Sahar, his wyvern, in the stableyard for the night with a full trough of water, giving her a rub on the warm white scales on the crown of her head in apology for the poor service. He’d thought about repurposing the sauna as a wyvern stall for the heat, but there would be no point; those fires were five years dead, and firewood wouldn’t be easy to come by. Perhaps it would be blasphemous, too, and if the Goddess wasn’t already offended by his lack of proper awe towards her, he didn’t want to tempt fate by desecrating even more of her home.

Besides, even if he had got the fires working it would have been a toss-up between Sahar and him for who got to enjoy the spoils - his body was reminding him very loudly just how much of the last five years he’d spent sitting around tables and hunched over desks, and how little he’d spent riding wyverns.

It wasn’t until he saw his old room, still piled with the last books he’d read in Garreg Mach, that it hit him how odd this all was. He put his keys down on the desk, lit five year old candles and felt like his own ghost.

He opened a dry, crackling book at the slip of paper he’d used as a bookmark, still bearing the scribbled notes of a half-formed scheme he didn’t even remember.

_Look in_ _ ~~cellar~~ ~~woodpile~~ greenhouse???_  
_Ask Shamir for thing  
_ _Lysithea knows how, but be discreet_

He turned it over, but there was nothing written on the other side. It would have to remain a mystery.

Mice scratched in the corners and the candlelight illuminated abandoned spiderwebs over everything, thick with dust and the husks of flies and fine curled spider-skins that cast spindly shadows over the ceiling. Cyril would be beside himself if he could see the state of the place.

And where was he?

Where were any of them? There were what seemed to be signs of sporadic activity here and there, new breaks in doors and windows, firepits and strewn bones, but there was nobody else living here. No footprints visible in the snow but his own, and the hoofprints of deer, fox tracks, lynx, hare. The people round about, on the narrow roads around the town, were full of tales of thieves, but the threat of the Goddess must have kept them from establishing themselves here, because there was certainly no military presence left here.

The thought he’d been ignoring came creeping up through the shadows: _What if no one shows up?_

Then there were plenty of things he could take back to the Alliance. Renewed trust in his information network. Knowledge that the monastery was unoccupied. Not to mention all those banned books Seteth had hidden. They must still be around somewhere, hopefully safely shut away from the weather as well as curious eyes. Plenty of silver linings to this cloud.

The professors’ offices, too, might be worth raiding, if they hadn’t already been looted for valuables, and there was the Holy Tomb lying in wait beneath the whole thing, helpless without Cyril to guard it. It would be rude _not_ to.

Sleep wasn’t coming for him any time soon, and he couldn’t focus on any of the books his five-year-younger self had been concerned with, so he left his room. Some of the other bedrooms could be treasure troves of information, he reasoned, wrapped up against the stale indoor cold. Linhardt might have left something behind, with the speed of the Eagles’ departure five years ago, though it would probably be incomprehensible to Claude. If he could get hold of Lysithea though, she’d be only too happy to interpret for him… And not just knowledge, but secrets might be hidden there. Personal histories, gaps in the outward faces of his old schoolmates that he could get a toehold in, something to grasp onto just in case he needed it later. All the secrets Lorenz might have...

Edelgard would have cleared her things right out, he thought, or else Hubert would have glided in behind her and swept it clean. And Dimitri was… Well. Dimitri was no good to anyone now. Better to let those rabid dogs lie.

One thing he would not let lie, however, was the Holy Tomb. He looked down the corridor into the shadows. It might be his only chance. The Millennium Festival was tomorrow, and who knew which of Garreg Mach’s alumni would come back out of nostalgia for the old place?

A pull from the other direction, equally dark, Sylvain’s room and a dead end.

The Holy Tomb waited for him.

_But Sylvain..._

Claude knew he should leave it alone, remembered all the reasons why he couldn’t inhabit his academy student self anymore, but by then he had his shoulder up against Sylvain’s door, knowing he wouldn’t have bothered locking it, and forced it open in a little shower of damp splinters and shreds of wood.

Completely empty. There was none of him left here. Claude was a different person and Sylvain was too, the Gautier rebel holding his own against impossible odds, for now.

He shut the door as best he could behind him, pulling till it stuck in its warped frame, and headed out into the frosty night. If he went back to his own room the memories would only follow him, to sit outside his door and wait for his resolve to break.

*

Just about all that the last five years couldn't change were the stars. They shone down from the same constellations as they always had, with their Fódlan names and Almyran stories, and probably Brigid spirits and Dagdan myths and who knew what from Sreng and Albinea and beyond. It was a good place to be, worth the cold. Like the space he could get into while meditating in the morning, where even schemes weren’t allowed. No past, no future, no one else’s interpretation of who he was or what he should be doing. No Fódlan or Almyran identity, only him, without even the weight of a name.

He watched the stars from the top of the Goddess Tower, and before he even began to contemplate sleep they were paling already in the dawn. The mountains came back into view, sharp with snow. _This is it,_ he thought. _The first day of the future._

A sound behind him - larger than a rat, and more purposeful. A rustle of clothes, the clink of a familiar sword. For once, the smile on his face was real. He’d have to apologise to Judith later - he wouldn’t be going back to Derdriu just yet.

“You overslept, Teach.”


	2. Opening Gambit

The last five years had been a stretched-out moment on a tightrope, constantly shifting the weight of the Alliance and balancing the tensions perfectly over the centre line, and then five years' worth of change happened over a single day.

Of course they’d come.

Claude had suggested a commemorative feast partly out of habit. "It is the Millennium Festival, after all. It would be pretty sad to let it go by unremarked, wouldn't it?"

To which all present had agreed that it would. The Golden Deer house was the party house, and some reputations were worth maintaining. Not to mention it was a good position to be in if any other old Academy students came wandering around. _Join the party. We’re all friends here. Tell me, how are things back home?_

Too much to hope for, perhaps, that any Black Eagles would come calling, but maybe a Lion or two…? It was a long way from Gautier, but stranger things had happened.

Professor Byleth - or just Byleth now, he supposed, though always and forever Teach - nudged him gently, her eyes curious.

“Just lost in thought,” he said. “Impressed at the feast we’ve rustled up at such short notice. You taught us how to fend for ourselves after all.”

She returned his smile, hers a little wry. She always saw right through him.

“Wow, Hilda,” Leonie was saying at the other end of the table, “people back home were saying _I’ve_ put on airs and graces since I was at the Officer’s Academy. I can only imagine how low their jaws would drop if they ever met you.”

“Airs and graces!” Hilda laughed around a mouthful of grouse. “You!”

Leonie reddened. “I don’t see what’s so funny!”

Hilda calmed herself down with some difficulty. “No, no, I didn’t mean that. You’re just so… practical.” She said the word as though she were holding it at arm’s length. “If they ever bother you, just write, and I’ll come for a visit. I’ll show them a real lady of leisure.”

Claude laughed along, though he wondered what they thought they were doing here, whether they realised that they were in this for the long haul now. There wouldn’t be many chances to go visiting each other’s hometowns now.

The day weighed heavy on him. He found himself looking from one to the other of them as they caught up on the last five years, slackening his grip on his thoughts and falling back into old habits.

He knew Raphael had been looking for open positions as a knight but not found anything stable enough to support his family. How close was he still with his old merchant contacts? Would he be open to a little exchange of information? Well-paid, of course.

Ignatz might be a better bet for contacts - he was still helping out with the family business while he dithered over his real ambitions, but his family might have other agendas to push. There was no telling without asking Ignatz himself what they thought of the absentee young Duke.

Marianne sat a little apart and kept to herself. She smiled from time to time along with the boisterous laughter but made little eye contact. Now there was an enigma. Of all of them, Marianne seemed least likely to venture out through war-torn lands for a class reunion. Maybe it was the monastery she missed, or the call of the Goddess had urged her on. Or maybe Margrave Edmund had his own ideas and had sent her himself. They didn’t seem to get along terribly well, but Claude didn’t doubt that the Margrave would have the last word in any argument he got into. He was used to getting his own way, and Marianne was used to giving hers up. One to watch.

He’d been able to follow Hilda the most closely since the battle at Garreg Mach, but most of his information, filtered through Holst when they met at roundtables, concerned her laziness and blithe disregard for Holst’s wishes. As far as Claude could tell, it would take more than a war with the Empire to change her.

And another unchanging old double-edged comrade, Lorenz continued to be Lorenz. Just how much of a problem that turned out to be, they’d see soon enough. If he decided to cause trouble, he’d find out Claude had done his homework.

He wasn’t the only representative of a pro-Imperial house, either, though Lysithea had been characteristically withering in her assessment of the Adrestian forces and everything they stood for. On one hand, she was the apple of her parents’ eye, their talented only daughter. On the other, politically she held no weight at all, and she obviously hadn’t influenced House Ordelia’s stance a whit.

And finally Leonie. Sweet, abrasive, dependable Leonie, who wouldn’t know a hidden agenda if it hooked itself on her fishing line. Leonie, whose motives he would never have to doubt as long as they had her word behind them, who was from the absolute middle of absolutely nowhere, who knew nobody, who politically was worth less than-

_Enough of that._

“Hello? Hello? Are we boring you?”

Almost before he blinked Hilda into focus the words were on his tongue. “Not at all. Just wondering how I can get you all to work in the kitchens at Derdriu. You’ve outdone yourself.”

Hilda turned coyly to look at him through her eyelashes. “Oh, the others helped.”

“I’m sure.”

And truth be told, they had done a good job. Fresh-hunted grouse, trout from some mountain stream Leonie had tracked down (the monastery pool was long since empty and scummed over with weed), a few loaves of bread and pats of butter from the town, and even a cake or two, which Lysithea was sitting watchfully over.

“You’re being very generous seeing as you’ve hardly touched a thing,” observed Lorenz.

“Something wrong?” asked Claude.

“Not at all,” replied Lorenz, taking a dainty bite. “I just find your behaviour unbecoming of the leader of the Alliance. You have been graciously provided a meal. The least you can do is appreciate it, especially after refusing to help cook.”

“Refusing? Not at all. I would much rather have been spending time with you than taking care of business.” Not a lie - he would have much rather done pretty much anything to avoid being stuck in his cold room writing a stack of grovelling letters to Judith, apologising for the unexpected twist in his journey (| _Can I make it up to you by telling you we’re the proud new occupiers of the old Garreg Mach monastery? No?_ ), and Nader, back in Riegan, begging him to oversee matters until he could get back ( _I know what you’re going to say, but I’ll get back as often as I can to keep the heat off you, and as long as you keep being your usual exceedingly capable self, they’ll probably prefer you to me anyway_ ).

Lorenz sighed theatrically. “Of course you would. The eternal statesman. Tell me, do you never get tired of it?”

Claude cocked his head as though considering it. “I actually don’t." He shrugged apologetically. "So no point fishing for my job.”

“You both sound like children,” said Lysithea, already on her second slice of cake.

“You’re right,” said Claude. “Lorenz, we should be ashamed.” He gestured down the table. “Out of the mouths of babes.”

Lysithea shot to her feet. “How dare you!”

“Oh, I’ve missed you all,” he said. “I really have.”

And he had. But he couldn’t quite get back to that place. The meal continued, and the sun set, and Claude kept on losing his hold over the spinning, scheming part of himself and having to yank on the reins before he ended up saying something he regretted. He tried to look past the years and see his old classmates, but he ended up at the same place every time - if he could have the noble-born Deer at the roundtable as their House representatives then he’d have an easy majority: Goneril, Ordelia, Edmund, Gloucester, and himself for Riegan. If he could use the common-born Deer for information flow he'd have a complete overview of the whole Alliance and beyond.

Marianne was the first to get up from her chair, breaking the tension within him like a summer rainstorm. “I’d like to see the cathedral before I go to bed, I think,” she said, and hovered there as if waiting to be told no.

“Be careful,” said Claude. “I don’t know how stable the buildings are.”

Marianne nodded.

Hilda piped up. “And watch out for… anything, I mean… I haven’t seen any, um, bones or anything, but…”

Claude shook his head. “I think the Church must have laid them to rest after the battle five years ago, before they left the monastery. I haven’t seen anything like that.”

“I’ll pray for them,” said Marianne.

“Do you mind if I come with you?” asked Ignatz. “If you don’t mind waiting while I get… something.”

“Are you going to paint?” Leonie asked him.

Ignatz seemed to shrink.

“You really are always prepared.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it, I mean it’s not very useful, and actually I should have used the space to bring something more-”

“Goddess, just take the compliment!”

Ignatz shrank. “I don’t know if I- how about- you know what, I should stay here and wash the dishes…”

Leonie groaned loudly, and Claude found himself restless again, caught in the strange, wrong, utter certainty that something was going to happen, that all of this was the result of some cosmic staging intended to keep him there as long as possible. As though he was being slowly tricked into something.

Raphael broke the moment. “Nah, I’ll take care of it, Ignatz. You go paint.”

Ignatz tried to protest further, but by then Lysithea was bored of the charade. “If you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, then stop making Marianne wait, and go.”

That sent him running to fetch his supplies quickly enough, feet winged by guilt. Claude had always thought Lysithea was a little too prickly for diplomacy, but maybe she could have her uses…

_Stop it. You’re not in Derdriu anymore._ He tried to think of bed instead, indulging in a stack of library books by candlelight, sinking into the words. “Time for me to turn in too,” he said. “We’ll meet again tomorrow to discuss where we go from here. I hope you like long conversations as much as I do, Teach.”

She didn't look like she relished the prospect. She looked tired, which didn’t surprise him given her tall tales of sleeping for five years straight, but nodded resolutely.

“You aren’t going to help clean up?” asked Lorenz in mock-astonishment. “I suppose you have attained such lofty heights that you simply operate on a higher plane to the rest of us now.”

“I’ll take clean-up duty tomorrow,” said Claude coolly.

He managed to extricate himself with reasonable grace. Lorenz’s words lodged in him, an irritant. They reminded him of what Judith had said to him, and kept saying to him, about responsibility and being seen to be present, to do the boring stuff because it had its uses, and it annoyed him. He’d take it from Judith but not from Lorenz.

The monastery expanded around him, corridors seeming to lengthen and courtyards to stretch, the wintry wind howling through the empty window frames. A handful of people against all this history, grand even in its dereliction. What were they thinking? What was _he_ thinking, throwing in his lot with these people he hadn’t seen in five years? And on the other hand, what was he thinking in suspecting his old classmates, who had never been disloyal to him?

_You can’t have both_ , he told himself firmly. _It’s one or the other._

Well, what if he compromised? No full-on spy campaigns, for which he lacked the resources anyway, just subtly keeping an eye on the post for a while, just to give himself peace of mind. He could volunteer to take the post into the town easily, what with all the letters he was going to be writing. And probably he’d find nothing anyway and could get on with the business of fortifying the monastery, and if he did find something, well, he could decide what to do from there.

His room waited for him, but suddenly it seemed too obvious a place to go. Maybe he should find somewhere to work where no one would know to go rifling through things that didn’t belong to them. And if Sylvain’s room at the very end of the corridor was the best bet, then surely that was coincidence and nothing more.

The slightest sound of distaste behind him made Claude turn his head. “Lorenz,” he said, before Lorenz could get the first word in.

Lorenz returned the greeting testily. “Claude.”

“After dinner clean-up finished in record time. Looks like you didn’t need me after all.”

“True. Maybe you’re not as necessary as you think.”

Despite himself Claude had to hold back a smirk. “Save your claws for the enemy, Lorenz.”

“Pardon my manners.”

They walked in silence for a while, past locked doors they had no keys to, until Lorenz couldn’t hold himself back any longer. “If only you could unite the Alliance the way you united the class over dinner.”

“If only. It helps that there’s no shady factions trying to sow discord among the Golden Deer.” He allowed himself a brief glance over his shoulder. “Right, Lorenz?”

Lorenz flushed. “If this is about vassalage to-”

“It’s not.” House Gloucester’s acceptance of vassalage to the Empire was perfectly fine, in Claude’s view; one of the few things about this whole debacle that old Count Gloucester had done right. Gloucester felt secure, the more invasion-happy parts of the Empire were mollified for a little while, and everyone was a winner. No, the problem was Gloucester acting as though he’d _meant_ it.

“And it’s not just Gloucester, as you well know.”

“I’m very aware.”

“I’m sure this is all very new and exciting to _you_ , as someone not brought up among the great and ancient institutions of the Alliance, but the rest of us have seen this same old game play out many times before. Perhaps there are those in the Alliance who have simply tired of the dominance of House Riegan.”

The trap he had been saving fell out of Claude’s mouth in a flash of red. “It must kill you that every time you get rid of one of us, another Riegan just steps into the position.”

Lorenz stopped, coughed. “I’m sorry, excuse me, but-?”

Claude stopped in front of him, smiling easily. “Of course, who’d put stock in that kind of hackneyed rumour? Notorious contrarian arranges for an accident to befall his rival. If you saw it in an opera you’d yawn.”

“I don’t understand what-”

“But it’s harder to ignore when the notorious contrarian starts dropping monsters in the way of merchants travelling into - but not out of! - his rival’s lands. That paints a certain picture. Of someone who probably wouldn’t stop at much.”

“Come now, merchants aren’t dukes-!”

_Stop._ He did not stop. “Who’d know that better than Raphael, huh? Not many people talk about the merchants who were with the Duke at the time.” He stood calm in the centre of his own storm, watching horrified realisation distort Lorenz’s face.

_He had no idea until right now. Perfectly good intel, wasted._

“The way I see it,” said Claude, his anger already fading into dull regret, “you’re in one of two positions. Either you've been playing at politics all this time without any real idea of what you're doing, or you’re complicit. Don’t tell me which it is. It’s pretty clear.” And he turned away, heart racing. He needed to get away. He needed to be alone. His head was too full of unknowns and he couldn’t add any more to the store until he’d worked through some of the pile.

“Claude, wait!”

He didn’t turn back.

“I had nothing to do with that! And I came here, didn’t I? Does anyone know? Claude? Are you going to tell them?"

_Keep walking, Riegan._

"Claude! Look, you- you can’t blame me for being who I am! Where I come from is not my fault!”

Claude went cold. _Either he knows, or there is a Goddess and she really doesn’t like that I was going to put the wyvern in her sauna._ “We’re done here, Lorenz.”

He kept walking until the corridor simply ran out, a blind, black corner. His mind screamed at him for his recklessness. Way to jeopardise his position here as well as back home. No more of that, please. And he’d have to hope not too much damage had been done this time.

_Should’ve taken Sylvain up on his offer five years ago. I could have done plenty of good from the Almyran side of the border too._

He squashed the yearning image of the possibility before it could appear.

_No. That way madness lies._

_So let’s see what’s lying at the end of this road._

*

Tasha was nothing like Claude.

She was the wrong size, her skin too pale; her calluses were farming calluses and not archery calluses, and she kept encouraging Sylvain in a breathy whisper, squirming obligingly under his hands as if to show him what to do. Her own hands were tangled in her hair, her face turned into her shoulder and her back arched. Sylvain lowered himself over her and buried his face in her damp neck, and she made a little sound of pleased surprise, or perhaps impatience.

Nothing like him; her hair too long, her voice too high, her eyes too brown. She smelt of laundry and kitchens. She was in a rush and so was he - she was already looking ahead to having a piece of his Crest on her finger or safely inside her; he was already thinking about the next raid to see off, the next bad news, the next message rider found cold on the dales under a circle of ravens. Already looking forward to being able to sleep through tonight and not remember most of it when he woke up in the morning.

He should be exhausted after the scuffle with the Empire’s spyriders but he was lit up with adrenaline, starving for something that was never what was in front of him. He moved faster, harder, grunted and swore when the movement pulled on freshly-healed muscles. Tasha just pulled him closer, her fingers hard.

Claude would have stopped him at the first sound of pain. Tasha wrapped her legs around him. Sylvain leaned into the line of his aching and forced it thinner, sharper, just because he could and he knew Tasha wouldn’t notice or care.

He wanted to be slowed down. Wanted someone to lead him through the maze of himself until he was lost in something huge, wanted hands on his shoulders, his back, running up his thighs, and for Claude to show him that it was all a game after all, everything was just a game, and make him believe it.

He shut his eyes and was five years younger in Garreg Mach. He was wise to Claude’s tricks. It was summer. Nothing had happened yet. He was cleverer than the real him had been. He knew what to say to make Claude sit still while Sylvain reached out and touched him the way he’d touch a wild animal gone half-tame.

And Sylvain was panting into Tasha’s hair, stretched out on the floor of the wine cellar, in a castle in Fraldarius, his sweat drying cold quickly in the draughts. She gave him a peck on the cheek, her own cheeks flushed in the lanternlight, and nudged him out of the way to pull on her clothes again and tie up her hair.

“See you next time,” she said.

*

The presence of Byleth and her Golden Deer alone in Garreg Mach kicked off ripples of action without Claude having to do a thing (though of course a whole wagonload of letters had already gone out in every direction). The first he knew of it was a scratching outside Sylvain's door, early one morning when he was wondering how likely the Eastern Church was to offer them support if he tried to appear sufficiently pious. He absently folded Margrave Edmund's latest letter carefully back into its envelope and put it on the pile with the rest of the day's post. Another furtive scratch, sounding close by. Almost in his room. In the walls.

_No wonder I kept thinking of mice while I was meditating._

Better to nip it in the bud now. They weren’t going to have enough supplies to share with hungry rodents, even if the Eastern Church did take pity on them. He went to inch open the door, bracing against the rust, but to his surprise it burst smoothly open.

“Gah!”

Claude assumed that the cry came from him, until a very unmouselike kick thumped into the door, followed by an outraged, “What’d ya do that for?”

Claude peeked out from the edge of the door. “...Cyril?”

Cyril glared at him sullenly from about a foot higher than Claude remembered his eyes being. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“I thought you were a mouse.”

“Okay?” He turned back to his broom and his buckets. He may have grown, and got his hands on some nice armour, but he was still the same tough little nut he had ever been. Every line of his body asked, _Why are you telling me this?_

Cyril knew the monastery well enough to know this wasn't Claude's room. Claude cast about for a diversion. “Have you been… living here all this time?” he asked.

Cyril looked mildly annoyed by the question. “No. I’ve been lookin’ for Lady Rhea.”

“Of course you have.” Maybe a little rude.

But did it really count as rudeness when Cyril didn’t care at all, didn’t even seem to notice there was something to be insulted by?

_Yes, it counts. I used to be charming._ And something kept sending him back to this tough nut, trying and trying to crack him. He wondered what would happen if he ever “accidentally” greeted Cyril in Almyran, but he’d never dared yet, and he wasn’t going to now. There’d have to be a much larger reward in it.

“You’re taller.”

“Yep.” Cyril stood patiently waiting for him to tire of the game and let him get back to work.

“Thanks for oiling the door, anyway.”

Cyril shrugged. “It’s my job.”

“No it isn’t. And even if it was, that’s no excuse for me to repay you by almost squashing you against the wall with it.”

Cyril shrugged again, as if to say, _Maybe so, I’m just a nobody, can’t argue with you high and mighty folks if that’s how you want to see it._

Claude was aware of his habit of ascribing elaborate, eloquent meaning to Cyril’s every obstinate silence. Cyril could have meant anything by it. Or nothing. Maybe he just couldn't put his thoughts in Fódlan words. His terseness could have been frustration. And here was Claude, uncharitably withholding his Almyran lifeline.

_Nice try. Still not happening._

“I mean, you’ve clearly been doing a lot more with your time than sweeping and dusting these last five years. Nice pauldron, by the way.”

Cyril glanced down at his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“You get it in town?”

“Not Garreg Mach town. A different one, in the Alliance somewhere. Alois said they do good armour for archers.”

Claude nodded appreciatively. “We do a good line in everything you’d need to shoot arrows at people in perfect comfort.” The Knights of Seiros had been nosing around the Alliance? He should have known more about that. He’d have to find out which territories they’d been through and ask their respective lords and ladies why he hadn’t heard about it till now. Add that to the to-do list.

“Yeah, sure.” Cyril looked over Claude’s shoulder as though he saw something more interesting than this conversation there. “Listen, I got a lot to do, so…”

“Don’t let me stop you. But don’t forget you’re a soldier, not a servant.”

“Sure,” said Cyril again. “The place should be nice for Lady Rhea comin’ back, though.”

_She hasn’t come back in these last five years_ , Claude didn’t say. In the end, this was the wyvern-sized barrier between him and Cyril. The Archbishop loomed between them. Cyril's loyalty to her, his faith in a foreign Goddess. Almyra had turned its head for a moment and lost a child.

How could they connect over the land that had rejected Claude, and Cyril had rejected in turn?

“I suppose I can expect the rest of the Knights back hot on your heels, can I?”

“I already told the professor when they’ll be back.”

_Of course. The new Archbishop. Not that he’ll want to call her that and give up on Rhea out loud._ “Well, I hope they’ve brought their own dinner with them,” he said. “Because the Goddess knows we can’t feed them. And speaking of the Goddess, here comes her spokesman now.”

Seteth didn’t look pleased by the appellation, but Seteth had never liked him anyway. “I don’t remember your room being all the way down here,” he said.

Claude forced himself to remain where he was, though he wanted very badly to block Seteth’s view into Sylvain’s room. He wouldn’t put it past Seteth to be able to recognise everyone’s personal letters by sight. He laughed disarmingly. “Good memory. I just thought that since the monastery’s almost empty right now, it’s a good time to make sure I don’t want to switch rooms.”

“Hm,” said Seteth.

“Anyway, welcome home. We tried to keep the old place nice for you, though I’m sure Cyril’s disappointed at our efforts.”

Cyril looked almost mutinous.

“Joking aside, I am really glad to have the Knights of Seiros back here,” Claude said, as a barbed peace offering. An olive branch bearing thorns. “You’re lucky the Empire didn’t decide to come back here and occupy the monastery during these last five years. If we hadn’t got here first…”

“Our duties lay with the Archbishop,” said Seteth tersely.

“I thought the professor was the new Archbishop,” said Claude innocently, which drew a searing glare from Seteth. Cyril glanced at him, curious, a little worried. Whatever wall he put up in front of Claude came down at the talk of the Archbishop.

Seteth smiled thinly. “And until recently, her whereabouts were also unknown, yes?”

“Some might say that would be all the more reason for the Church to conserve its power and not go spreading itself across the continent.” Claude laughed. “Not that it’s my place to tell the Church how to act,” he added. “I’m not a particularly good follower of Seiros. Just seems strange to me that such a prime strategic position would be abandoned in favour of one person.” _Who you didn’t even come close to finding._

Cyril stepped forward. “How could you-?”

Seteth stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and gave Claude a long, searching look. “I know you are not much of a believer - no, do not protest, let us speak plainly - but I had thought you more a scholar of our ways than that. The Archbishop is a person, a life, and the monastery only stones and mortar. It is clear to me which has the highest value.”

“Hard to argue when you put it like that.” Claude waited a sly beat. “You’re right. And any help I can offer you to find her is at your disposal, of course. Did you need me for something, by the way?”

“I was wondering if you could provide a report on the state of the monastery,” said Seteth.

“A report? Gladly. I’ll have it on your desk tomorrow.” _Keeping an eye on me, more like._ “I’ll be sure to include my final room choice so you know where to find me in future.”

Seteth made a faint noise of displeased acknowledgement. Cyril gave him another one of those stubborn looks before he picked up his broom and turned to follow Seteth.

_Don’t fool yourself, Riegan_ , he thought. _Cyril knows exactly whose side he’s on, and so should you._

*

“Hey, Felix. You awake?”

“Ugh, Sylvain?”

“That’s a yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Can’t sleep. Want to go for a walk?”

“Aren’t you meant to be setting out for Gautier at first light?”

“Come on, we’re still young enough for an all-nighter.”

“I’m not going _anywhere_ with you.”

“What-? Oh. Oh, wow, Felix, seriously? Can you think of a worse person to take picking up girls than you?”

“Then what do you want?”

“Don’t be snippy. I was thinking we could take a little stroll on the other side of the line. See if we can’t stir up a little trouble. You said you were up for it.”

“I thought you were joking.”

“Come on, have you ever known me to joke?”

“Does anyone else know about this?”

“Well, no, not exactly. ...Felix? You still there?”

“Ugh. Okay, let’s go.”


	3. Contingency Plans

The forces of the illegitimate Faerghus Dukedom had drawn closer to the edges of the Fraldarius lands lately, so even in these small hours the castle walls were lit with guard fires that reflected off lance tips and helmets. Sylvain and Felix crossed the courtyard beneath them, as casually as if they had real business to attend to. It was the worst time for Sylvain’s father to call him back home. At least this way he might be able to strike a quick blow before he went.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Felix.

“Eh.” Sylvain glanced down a darkened passageway, but no one stirred. “I thought you might have some ideas.”

“Sylvain, what-?”

“Quiet. People are sleeping.”

Felix dropped his voice but his eyes still blazed with angry disbelief. “What are you thinking? Haven’t you learned anything at all?”

“Come on, this is your thing. You love this.” Before Felix could snap at him again, or perhaps explode out of frustration, Sylvain added, “You were always talking about innovative tactics and being creative in battle at the Academy, weren’t you? Clear-cutting forests and stealing horses and all that stuff.”

“Yeah, but-”

“And if I’m crazy for coming out here with no plan, what does it say about you that you agreed to come without asking what I was planning?”

"If I didn't tag along on all your dumb ideas you'd be dead by now." Felix sighed dramatically. “Okay, fine, let’s just see what’s there.”

“I doubt there’ll be any forests to burn, but they’ll probably have plenty of horses to liberate. Should be a good start.”

The night was as clear as a glacier, and sharp as an icicle. Still, Sylvain didn’t feel the cold once they rode past the door guard with nods, brusque from Felix and friendly from Sylvain, and were out in the world beyond their tiny stronghold. The horses’ hoofbeats were so loud on the flagstones he was sure they were going to get caught, and then they were out and crunching through frozen grass, and free. Fraldarius was the sort of land that _felt_ big, and made anyone in it feel minuscule. It seemed the size of a world, somehow contained within the rest of Faerghus.

He and Felix didn’t need to talk to each other, warn each other to keep an eye out for enemy scouts, get done what they had to do quickly before anyone missed them and thought to ask any of the guards they’d waltzed brazenly past. One look and they were on the same page. And out here in the night, with his sword at his hip, Felix was smiling in that way he had, where his face didn’t move at all but his whole being radiated with satisfaction. Sylvain felt better than he had in months.

They saw the campfires from a distance, and Sylvain pointed down at their horses questioningly.

Felix nodded, all this terrain his boyhood playground, and they dismounted, leaving the horses lightly tied to graze on frost-nipped grass in a crease in the land with cloaks thrown over their backs like half-hearted apologies.

“So what are you thinking?” asked Sylvain in a whisper.

Felix shot him a disgusted look. “I can’t believe how unprepared you are.”

“Steal some horses? Leave Cornelia a nice note?”

“Could torch the camp if it wasn’t the dead of winter.”

“You are _terrifying_.”

Felix ignored him. “If they have wyverns we should let them loose. And let’s see where they keep their supplies.”

“Oh, man, I hope they have some of those herring tarts they served at the Academy.”

There wasn’t much in the way of cover, so all they could do was stay low and keep out of the light. Sylvain found himself wondering briefly what he thought he was doing here, two of them against the vanguard of an army, but pushed the thought away. Not the point. He just wanted to do something. They circled widely around the edge of the camp, once or twice almost daring to come closer, but freezing at the sight of bored guards or soldiers rubbing their eyes, who’d come out stumbling for somewhere to relieve themselves.

“It’s almost like they don’t want anyone to get in,” whispered Sylvain.

Felix ignored him.

Another fruitless stretch of fell, so long that he began to suspect they’d walk into Blaiddyd territory before they got a chance to sneak into the camp, and he almost walked into Felix, crouched in the grass. Felix nudged him hard in annoyance and pointed up the slope of the ground. “Horses.”

Sylvain could smell them now, and almost hear the sounds of them stamping and shifting clearly through the cold air. “Sounds like they want to go out for a walk to me.”

Felix restrained his response to a roll of his eyes, and led the way up the bank.

He sat on watch while Sylvain broke open the stable doors, aware of each crack of wood and snort of curious horse. The camp was set up for the long haul - he’d assumed the Imperial forces (he wouldn’t dignify them with any other pretended titles) would have tied the horses up in a much cruder shelter than this. They meant to stay. They meant to push forward from here. Build up a route.

And while they were doing that, his father was calling him up north.

Sylvain would have bet the Lance of Ruin that there was nothing out of the ordinary in Sreng. His father just didn’t like having the Relic so far away from the House for so long. It was only the Lance he needed, anyway - Sylvain himself was just a warm body to hold it.

“You have to wait for us to get out of view before you run amok, okay?” he said to a long bay face. The horse stepped back from him and angled its head for a better view. The rough stable door gave with a muffled crunch. “You got that, pony?” The horse made no sign it had understood. “Great, I’m turning into Ingrid.”

He scattered fodder outside the stable to give the horses more of a reason to leave their shelter, and was about to head back to Felix when something caught his eye - a banner. Kleiman’s coat of arms.

_Turncoat bastard._

He tore the banner down and threw it over his arm before meeting back up with Felix, in a sudden burst of (admittedly childish) inspiration.

“Done?” asked Felix.

“Yeah. Might not be as effective as we thought. I don’t know if the horses are up for much escaping from their cosy stalls into this cold.”

“Ugh.”

“They’ll have more stables, right? Might have more luck there.” His voice trailed off as he realised what this meant. What were they doing? What difference was this supposed to make? He missed Claude in a sudden rush. Claude would have come up with something spectacular.

“What’s that look for?” asked Felix. “Changed your mind?”

Sylvain forced a laugh. _We’re idiots. We’re children. We don’t know anything._ “Never. Anyway, look what I found.” He lifted the banner and it unfurled, falling heavy to the ground.

Felix hardly spared it a glance. “What is it?”

“Kleiman’s banner.”

Felix grunted.

“Here. Watch this.” He hadn’t actually done it in front of anyone before, but he just concentrated the way he had done while practising or bored on his own, and the fire came flickering out from his fingertips, licking at the corner of the banner, which smouldered and caught.

Far from being impressed, Felix narrowed his eyes. “How long have you been able to do that?”

Sylvain shrugged. “Just been messing around with it.”

“They’re going to see that from a mile away,” said Felix.

Sylvain dropped the banner and the fire hissed out in the snow. “Pretty far out of the way for Kleiman, though.”

“The Empire’s grandstanding. Showing us how much of the Kingdom they can order around. Like we care.”

Sylvain had to admit he kind of cared.

As they hunted for the Imperial army’s supplies to raid and spoil, Sylvain found himself looking out for banners visible in the campfire light, marking off House after House in his mind. Rowe. Gaspard. Gideon. Blaiddyd. Charon. Every house seemed to have someone willing to try to besiege their staunchest old allies on Cornelia’s word.

Felix must have been thinking the same thing, because he stopped suddenly. “Is that Fraldarius?”

“Is what…?”

Felix was already charging off up the slope towards the camp.

“Hey, Felix,” said Sylvain, alarmed, “don’t you think you should-?”

Too late.

The soldier spotted Felix immediately. Sylvain was never sure afterwards what had happened - maybe the soldier had thought Felix was someone he knew, and just wanted to chat. Or maybe he’d worked out exactly what was going on. Either way, he didn’t have time to draw a weapon, if he had one, before Felix’s sword was out, barely flashing in the moonlight before it was sheathed again in the man’s gut.

Sylvain ran up the bank. Felix cleaned his sword blade as though he had finished an exercise in the training ground.

“What are you doing?” Sylvain hissed. “Don’t just stand there, we have to get out of here!”

“I need to know who it is.”

Sylvain looked at the corpse. No one he knew. Unarmed. Probably just some conscript out for a walk. Just bad luck. “I’ve never seen him before.”

“What? Not him! Who’s raising our banner?”

This time Sylvain grabbed him before he could prowl further into the camp. “Does it matter?!”

“Yes it matters!”

“Cornelia! She’s just messing with you, Felix, so don’t take the bait and let’s get out of here.”

Felix stood obstinate. “You wanted to cause some trouble. That fire would come in handy now.”

Faint raised voices.

“They’re _coming_. Let’s _go_.”

“Worry about yourself,” Felix snapped, and drew his sword. "Or if you want to torch the camp, now's the time."

The idiocy of all the choices he’d made tonight hit Sylvain all at once, as he tried to squint through the firelight and darkness to see who was coming. His Crest began to hum low in his blood.

_One more dumb decision won’t hurt, I guess._

Sylvain reached for the angles and spaces between the air where the fire was, grasped a handful of it, and flung it into the night. He grabbed Felix by the scruff of the neck as something exploded in sparks behind them, horse screams and human screams mingled in the clear, cold air, and dragged him out to the vast blackness of the fells, back to Fraldarius territory.

*

The monastery was awakening along with the spring. The old Golden Deer class couldn’t do much beyond starting to clear out the rubble and knock out shards of broken glass from their window frames, but along with the soldiers came their inevitable entourage of smiths and cooks, stablehands and squires to run messages. The larders began to fill up again, and the training hall hosted sparring soldiers, and the sauna began to emit fragrant scalding steam once more. The altar was still buried beneath its heaps of broken stone, but that didn’t stop people from visiting the cathedral, slipping away for a quiet moment to stand in front of the desolation and pray for something.

There wasn’t much time left for Claude to decide how he was going to play this, now that everyone knew Garreg Mach was occupied again. Even Sylvain might have heard by now, though Claude hadn’t heard any news from Gautier in a while. It might be worth sending out another discreet feeler in that direction. Just to make sure.

There were voices in the common room. Claude waited a moment outside the closed door, just to chase the schemes out of his head before anyone could see them on his face. He knew he’d changed more than any of the others. And he knew that maybe cleverness alone wasn’t enough to keep their trust. Trust in him cost more than it did in other people.

So he waited by the door, and let his thoughts run themselves down. Action without compromising the mirror-surface of the Alliance’s unity. Fooling himself that he could maintain the Alliance’s unthreatening appearance while being the Duke and carrying out his plans at the same time. What he’d say to convince the Lords to pledge actual support to him. Would Galatea kick back if he moved? Would Fraldarius react? Unlikely, given their focus on the opposite side of the territory, where the Imperial-backed Dukedom waited for an opening, but possible. And beyond Fraldarius was-

_Yeah, yeah, I know._

Hopefully it was good that he hadn’t heard anything. If the Empire had managed to snuff out the last rebels in Faerghus they’d have crowed it from the rooftops. If they’d struck a blow against House Gautier or Fraldarius, especially such a sharp one as killing-

_Everyone would know about it, that’s for sure. Let’s leave it at that._

Emptied it all out of his mind.

“I’m not saying we can’t take care of ourselves when they’re both gone,” said Leonie from the other side of the door, “but…”

Claude’s mind woke up again. Pricked an ear, cracked an eye.

The door was thick, and he lost the thread of the conversation for a while.

“...insincere?” said Lysithea.

A general rumble of reluctance? Doubt?

“...not a _believer_ as far…” Leonie again.

Curse the soft-spoken Golden Deer.

“I guess he just wants to…”

As interesting as it would be to hear what his old classmates thought he was up to, Claude was very aware that lurking at keyholes wasn’t going to make him look any less shady. He pretended to fumble at the door to give them time to finish their conversation before he came in.

Leonie was frowning at her side of a chessboard, with a nervous Ignatz at the other. Lorenz watched the game unfold, probably on the verge of giving some unsolicited advice. Lysithea looked up from between two stacks of books. Raphael paused in his sit-ups to give Claude a cheery wave. Hilda was cosied up with Marianne in a corner, threading beads onto something.

“Hi Claude!” she said, utterly guileless. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing interesting. Don’t let me interrupt.” He had hardly taken two steps before he remembered the last letter that had come from Goneril to Hilda, and he asked, casually, “Heard from that brother of yours lately?”

Hilda sighed. “Last I heard, he’d got himself chewed up by another Almyran raiding party.”

Claude tried to act surprised, though given Holst’s track record for injury, he didn’t need to look too surprised. “Again? Look, he won’t listen to me, so when you next write to him, will you ask him to leave the fighting to his soldiers? Just until I can make good use of him. Then he can do whatever he wants.”

She threaded another bead onto the wire. “I don’t know why you think he’d listen to _me_.”

“What is Holst but another man to wrap around your finger?”

She looked up at that and frowned at him. “Ewww!”

He caught the bead she threw at him easily, a satisfying smack into his palm.

“Gross.”

“What? You’re his favourite little sister. He won’t want you to be worrying about his health. He doesn’t care if _I_ do.”

“Can I have that back, please?” She held out an open hand, and Claude threw the bead back. “I can try, but wild pegasi won’t keep him out of a fight. You should be asking the Almyrans to stop causing trouble.”

“I’ve written to them to ask very nicely,” said Claude. "I haven't heard back yet."

“If only it was that easy, huh.” Hilda held up the wire, watching the light wink through the stones and beads.

Claude grinned. “If only.”

Leonie moved a chess piece, still frowning, finger balanced on the top. Ignatz chewed his lip. Lorenz let out a soft, discontented, “Hmm.” Leonie glared at him and took her finger decisively off the piece.

Claude resisted the urge to look too closely at the board. It would only upset him.

Ignatz moved a chess piece and took one of Leonie’s with a furtive, apologetic movement. She clicked her tongue and he flinched. “I swear, if you say you’re sorry again-”

“I wasn’t going to!”

“Well, good!”

Lorenz opened his mouth and she turned on him.

“And I’m never going to get better at it if you don’t just let me play!”

Lorenz shut his mouth again.

“You’ve got this, Ignatz,” said Raphael encouragingly. “Beat her good!”

“Nobody asked you!” snapped Leonie.

Raphael shrugged to himself. “I asked me.”

“Seems pretty quiet around here,” said Claude, sitting down by the fireplace, well out of sight of the board. “That’s nice.”

“I actually heard some troubling rumours in the library,” said Lysithea, glancing up from her work, her place on the page marked with an ink-stained finger.

“Misshelved books?” asked Claude. “Water damage? Foxed pages?”

“A bit more serious than that!” Lysithea glared at him, but it didn’t last. Whatever she’d heard was weighing on her. “It’s… well. I don’t know if I should repeat it.”

“If it’s about me, I’ve heard it all before,” said Claude carelessly, quashing the thread of suspicion that tightened suddenly around his bones.

“It wasn’t about you.”

“So vain,” added Hilda sweetly, and Claude gave her a winning smile.

“It was… about… Dimitri.”

The mood in the common room cooled. Marianne dropped her eyes to her clasped hands and murmured something too low for anyone to hear.

“That’s why I thought I shouldn’t say anything,” said Lysithea, somewhat defensively.

“What’s the rumour?” asked Claude.

“They said he wasn’t actually…” She swallowed and started again. “They said he was alive. I heard some people say that, anyway. The others didn’t think so.”

Claude saw the furtive hope catch light around the room.

“Do you think he could be?” asked Ignatz.

“How, though?” Hilda asked back. “Didn’t they…?” She drew a finger across her neck. “What?” she protested in response to the horrified look Marianne gave her. “That’s what they did!”

Claude nodded slowly. _Just another fool boy with a title._

“But that’s it,” said Lysithea. “This knight said nobody had actually seen it happen.”

“Who’d want to _see_ it?” asked Leonie in faint disgust.

“Or seen… him. After.”

“So they think it’s a cover-up?” asked Ignatz.

“Or he broke out of prison before they could get to him,” added Raphael, aiming a few punches at a shadow opponent.

“He was always pretty strong,” mused Leonie. “If anyone could do it…”

Hilda cocked her head. “What do you think, Claude? Is Dimitri running around in disguise like the Moon Knight?”

There had been a point five years ago, while Garreg Mach was still smouldering, when Claude had steeled himself for the Empire to crush him. The odds were in the air as to whether Edelgard would come down on the Kingdom or Alliance first, and the bare facts were that the Alliance would not have been able to stand for five minutes against her perfectly primed armies. He had plotted and schemed and come to the same conclusion each time: annihilation.

His continued existence was a matter of luck and nothing more. Not cleverness, not preparation, but Edelgard’s arbitrary decision to sweep Dimitri off the board first.

_We should be thanking him, wherever he’s gone to._

Those darkest plans remained, buried in him even now. He had thought he was prepared to face what might have come, but this, this hope sparked from the ghosts of burnt out embers, had never occurred to him. That if things got so desperate that the only way to resolve the fighting was to remove himself from the game, to die alone might not be enough to end it. He would have to die visibly. Definitively.

Flattering, sure, that they might continue to fight in his name. But endless, endless violence.

He was back in that hopeless place in his mind, kneeling on a dead battlefield with Edelgard’s axe cold on the back of his neck, only now he’d have to bite his tongue on all of those convincing speeches he’d crafted, and buy himself the quickest and most bloodless transfer of power he could.

Could he?

“No,” he said. He looked through them all to the lonely rebel holdouts of Faerghus, to howling winter winds and icy hillsides and Sylvain, fighting. “I think it’s just wishful thinking.”

“Wow, really? You don’t think it’s even a little weird that nobody’s seen a body?”

“We don’t know that for certain. We know that nobody these particular Knights of Seiros talked to has seen a body. I’m sure Edelgard went in to make sure, if she didn’t watch them do it. Or do it herself.”

Ignatz blanched, and Lysithea muttered, “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“She just seems like such a heads-on-spikes girl, you know what I mean?” Hilda pressed. “Why not shout it from the rooftops that she beat him?”

“Would make a pretty nice martyr out of him. And provocative, too - the Fraldarius lord would probably have stormed Fhirdiad himself if she’d dared, and he’s popular. She wouldn’t jeopardise her hold on the region with theatrics.”

“At least no one would be expecting him to come back from the dead like some storybook knight.”

“No, but it worked, didn’t it? There were no inflammatory cues, and enough confusion that the rebel lords didn’t rise up together and push back against the Empire while they were still establishing their hold on Faerghus. Even now they’re just barely holding on.”

“Huh,” said Hilda.

“I gotta say, it’s not how I’d have done it,” said Claude. “Too cloak and dagger for my taste.”

He’d meant to break the bleak mood, but no one laughed. Too late he realised that such things sounded different now when he said them.

*

Byleth had agreed to come with Claude on a quick trip back to the Alliance with her typical calm resoluteness. She’d been on edge ever since she’d learned about Rhea’s disappearance, but there wasn’t much room for finer feelings. Given the confusion of the last five years, and the absence of the Church, the more people who saw Byleth as the head of the Church in Rhea’s absence, the better for Claude. She was doing him a favour just by being here.

The difference in the hall was palpable.

The Alliance lords may have felt quite at ease throwing their weight around where Claude was involved, but they’d find it harder to talk back to the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros. Even Gloucester would have to think twice before calling down divine punishment on himself for insolence towards the current head of the Church.

He’d called another of his not-quite-roundtable meetings, which he knew the other four Great Houses hated, just to have Judith there, and as they’d all filed in to take their seats, had hung back to exchange a word with her.

“Hey,” he’d said. “So, you remember those soldiers of yours I freed up from border patrol a while back?”

If they’d been anywhere else, somewhere without Count Gloucester in the vicinity, she’d have given him an earful. Instead, she nodded, her lips thinned.

“I hope you put that pin in them like I asked. I might need them. Soon.”

“Just say the word, Your Grace.”

It was only the lightest sarcasm, but it took him right through the heart. If Gloucester and the others hadn’t been there, he would have dropped to his knees and begged her forgiveness. “The problem is discretion,” he said, trying not to squirm in the ice of her presence. “I don’t want to get you in trouble with Galatea, and I don’t want to get us in trouble with the Empire.” He paused and smiled, let Byleth pass him. “So we have a logistical problem. I’m going to work on it, but-”

“There’s a valley in Daphnel called Ailell,” said Judith. “The closest to neutral territory you’re likely to get. I’ll send you the details in a letter.”

A knot inside him uncoiled. “You’re my guardian spirit, I swear. You and Nardel.”

“Don’t get too comfortable. One day we might start calling in our debts, boy.”

He smiled broadly to hide the sinking of his stomach. “How about this? If I die without an heir, you get my seat at the roundtable.”

“Planning on dying young, are you?” asked Judith, letting him enter the hall before her.

He shrugged. “Always good to plan for the things you don’t plan on happening.”

Behind him, he was sure he heard her mutter that his mother would kill her if he dared have the audacity to die.

He watched Judith carefully now from his seat as Byleth spoke to the lords, searching for any clue to her thoughts on recent developments. Were things moving too fast? Too slow? Did she think he was spreading the Alliance too thin? Were they risking a provocation of the Empire? Where did she fall? She was one of his staunchest allies.

Holst of Goneril was there too, a little worse for wear after the skirmish at the border that he’d described in his letter to Hilda, but Holst wore his heart on his sleeve and Claude didn’t have to worry about his loyalty, sat there nodding away at Byleth’s every word. No, Holst brought his own problems. Namely, that Claude didn’t think he’d ever seen him without a new scar or a bandage or a sling somewhere about his person.

He seemed not to be aware that he was not allowed to get himself battered by Almyran raiding parties, because Claude needed him to be available to do some battering of his own on the _other_ border.

Still, he couldn’t leave the Almyran border undefended just yet. _I’m working on it as fast as I can_ , he thought defensively.

Of course, it wasn’t his allies Claude should have been looking at.

Count Gloucester listened to Byleth with his chin balanced on one gloved hand. Listening or recalculating his position. Good. Let him work out for himself that Claude was the most stable choice and everyone else could see it. Gloucester wasn’t a man of heart and mind to win over, but an abacus in human shape. Present the right calculation, and he’d follow. That was the theory, anyway. Claude had never known anyone succeed at it.

Margrave Edmund rarely wrote to Marianne, and when he did, he said nothing of interest to Claude. Close-mouthed and expressionless, he sat in the seat that had been Judith’s with the weight of his money behind him, teetering on the line between one side and the other. All that gold might fall either way. Hopefully Byleth was enough of a nudge to the right side.

Ordelia was easier to read than either of them, but harder to predict. How Lysithea had come from this timid man was a mystery. He looked less like a lord than a mouse in the corner, waiting for everyone’s back to be turned so he could escape.

He loosened his grip on the situation, slowly, muscle by muscle, and waited in perfect stillness until Byleth was finished, and the lords had satisfied themselves as to the nature of the situation in which they now found themselves. A better one, unbelievably, than the one they had woken up to this morning.

Byleth sat down again, with the slightest sigh.

Claude twitched a sympathetic smile at her. She caught his eye, expressionless.

_She hates this. Ah well. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do._

“Well,” said Margrave Edmund. “Let me be the first to thank Seiros for this blessing.”

“Hear, hear,” added Holst.

Claude slid smoothly in, before they could decide everything was over and that they were allowed to leave. “I’ve been consolidating our intel with the Knights of Seiros,” he said. “Which means we should now have a more comprehensive picture of how the Empire has expanded, and where we can hope to meet with less resistance if we need to make a move. Interestingly, there was quite a lot of overlap in our networks, where the Knights had already been moving through Alliance lands.”

Judith shifted in her seat, scanning the others surreptitiously.

“I know what you’re all thinking - when was this? How could this possibly have happened without any of us knowing? Because nobody brought it up these last five years, so clearly nobody knew.” Claude laughed. “And why would they even need to have been here? I mean, you’d have told me if any of you were hiding the old Archbishop anywhere in your territories, right? Right.” He held each of their gazes a moment longer. Nobody spoke, but then he hadn’t expected them to. There wasn’t much he could do about it other than let them know he knew. He didn’t need this double-dealing right now. Sure, the Church was nominally on his side, but they had their own ultimate aims. And his position was too tenuous right now to afford any of the Lords following the Church over him. Their appearance of unity was all that was holding them together and still all they wanted was to play their power games.

“Okay,” he said. “I think that’s all I have to say. The Archbishop and I will be heading back to the monastery tomorrow. There’s a lot of work to be done still. Now that the secret’s out, I don’t think it’ll be long before we can expect pilgrims to come knocking.”

*

The pilgrims, when they came knocking, were wearing chainmail and plate and marched under the banner of the Adrestian Empire, and Claude didn’t pause to wonder if it was against the tenets of the Church of Seiros to have turned them away from the gates with arrows and fire. He’d never been particularly saintly anyway.


	4. Torment

Ailell, the Valley of Torment, was not somewhere Claude would have chosen to come under any other circumstances than absolute necessity, but it was oddly perfect for his purposes. Judith knew what she was talking about. They drank gallons of water and sweated it all out under their armour, taking frequent breaks where it seemed safest to do so, where the rock was glossy black and uncracked by the living fire that warmed the whole valley.

Torment was right, he thought, adjusting his armour again and finding no position in which it was any more comfortable. His hair dripped sweat into his eyes, making him blink constantly when all he wanted was to be aware of his surroundings.

“This is the worst and I hate it,” announced Hilda again.

“We’re almost there,” said Claude automatically.

His wyvern, Sahar, was curled on a high stone, practically purring with pleasure. Her scales reflected the red lavalight of the valley so that she almost glowed.

“I feel like this is just a waste of water,” grumbled Leonie, tipping up yet another empty canteen. “We’re going to run out before we get there if we’re not careful.”

“I didn’t realise people from Fódlan sweated so much,” said Cyril. “Maybe it’s because you’re always drinking.”

Leonie screwed the cap back onto the canteen more forcefully than she needed to. “Well, sorry we can’t all be Almyran.”

“When he said ‘drinking’ he meant water, by the way,” said Claude.

“I know what he meant!” Leonie snapped.

Raphael lay sprawled out on a rock, almost steaming in the heat. “I can feel myself cooking. Is this what it’s like to be steak?”

"At least we wouldn't go hungry," said Hilda.

"What? You'd eat me?!"

"Hilda does what Hilda gotta do, sweetie. Nothing personal."

Marianne watched Ignatz sketch another barren wasteland. “I’m sure there’s something about this place,” she murmured. “But not in any scripture.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Claude. “Seems like the kind of place gods would enjoy. Even if it was just to enjoy throwing people into.”

Marianne aimed a shyly annoyed look at him.

“Not Seiros, of course,” he said. “But some gods.”

Lorenz looked as wilted as one of his roses as he fanned himself half-heartedly. “I must confess I feel partly responsible for this.”

“Not at all,” said Claude.

Lorenz tensed.

“You were right. We couldn’t go through Gloucester.”

Lorenz sighed, blowing damp strands of hair out of his face. “All because of my father…”

Claude took pity on him. It was too hot to pick fights. “Hey, cheer up. Roasting peacefully here is better than getting ambushed in balmy Gloucester territory. You did us a favour.”

“Some favour,” Lorenz mumbled.

Raphael stirred from his rock. “Lysithea, you sure you don’t have any nice freezy magic for us?”

“Well, maybe if-”

“I think we can probably do without any of Lysithea’s eldritch horrors right now,” said Claude firmly. “I have the utmost respect for your talent, but I don’t want to see what’s at the bottom of _that_ abyss.”

“Lorenz?” asked Raphael hopefully.

Lorenz wilted even further. “Only fire spells,” he said miserably.

Claude barked out a dry laugh. “Okay, I think it’s time to get to the rendezvous point so we can have the pleasure of leaving this place and never coming back. Come on.”

“Just a second,” said Ignatz, frowning at his paper and dashing out a couple of lines with his charcoal. He cocked his head and added a few more.

“It’s rocks and fire, Ignatz,” pleaded Hilda. “You’ve drawn fifty identical pictures. _Can we go now_?”

“Are those banners?” Marianne asked.

Claude followed the direction she was pointing in - the direction of the rendezvous point. He could see them as well, a shapeless mass like heat haze on the horizon.

Hilda sagged theatrically. “Finally, we’re here.”

They weren’t. Claude had maps of the Valley of Torment practically tattooed on his eyelids at this point, and there was still a fair piece to walk, but he wasn’t going to argue. “Looks like Judith’s guys got tired of waiting for us,” he said.

*

Over the last five years, Sylvain had spent time in every tiny half-derelict fort and castle in all of Gautier territory, and most of the ones in Fraldarius. The one he was staying in now, after a slightly unfulfilling breakfast in a cramped dining room, was average as these things went. It sat by the border that House Gautier had never thought they’d have to defend, a draughty structure that was so small it was almost charming, with a minimal staff recruited at short notice from the nearest village, which wasn’t that near.

He was glad to get his nose out of Sreng, which, as suspected, was as quiet as it was every winter when everyone on both sides had more important things to be doing than harassing each other. One thing the war was doing was hammering into Sylvain’s skull how urgently the Sreng situation needed to be resolved. They couldn’t just have this sword hanging over them all the time, and who even remembered why they hated each other anyway?

But that was for the future, if he survived this and became the Margrave of Gautier. For now he was stuck on the Gautier-Fraldarius border, jumping at shadows, waiting for Cornelia to stop toying with them and just make a move already.

What would Claude do? he wondered, but the answer was always the same - something he’d started planning six months ago that was so genius Sylvain couldn’t even imagine it. He’d make her act somehow, he thought, and make her think it was her own idea, and while he was doing that he’d also be making his own position absolutely watertight, as unassailable as…

...Arianrhod.

Arianrhod the impregnable fortress that was technically still impregnable, just belonged to the enemy now.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Felix, coming in from the outside hall. “What are you thinking about?”

“Arianrhod,” said Sylvain glumly, because he didn’t want to say “Claude”.

“Why?”

“Our toughest fortress rolled over like a puppy for the enemy.”

“So take it out on Count Rowe when you see him on the battlefield.”

“Oh sure, yeah, I’ll just do that.”

Felix had shown up at Sylvain’s temporary doorstep a couple of nights ago, declaring himself sick of the sight of Fraldarius and everyone in it. Which meant he’d fought with Lord Rodrigue again, most likely, but Sylvain was glad of the company so didn’t ask him about it. He’d asked how Felix had known where to find him in the middle of absolute nowhere, and Felix had responded with such an exquisitely disgusted look that Sylvain had almost asked him again just to see it a second time.

“Want some breakfast?” he asked. “Not that there’s much to be had.”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“That explains where the food’s gone, then.”

“I came to tell you your training ground has no weapons in the store.”

“Been making yourself at home, I see.”

“Didn’t you hear me?”

Sylvain took a bite out of a wrinkled apple, one of the last in the barrel they’d hauled up from the not-so-nearest village. “I heard you. You know this fort stood empty for, like, two hundred years before all this happened, right? You should be impressed it still has a roof on it.”

Felix was not impressed.

“Look, I’ll spar with you later if it’ll make you happy. Now sit down. You’re cluttering up the place.”

“Spar with what? Your weapons stores are empty.”

“Like you didn’t come with your own personal armoury.”

Felix held his gaze a moment longer, but he couldn’t deny it. “Just swords. And none I’d put in _your_ hand.”

“Then I’ll throw some fireballs for you to dodge. It’ll be fun.”

There was a tentative knock, and Sylvain looked up to see one of the village girls pressed into the role of temporary chatelaine standing in the doorway. There was no door; she had knocked awkwardly on the lid of an old wooden chest, filled with moth-eaten tapestries and tarnished silver, to get his attention. “Excuse me? Hello? Sir?”

Felix rolled his eyes. “Sir,” he muttered under his breath.

Sylvain kicked him under the table.

“There’s a report for you,” she said, holding out a thick, water-stained envelope.

Sylvain got up to take it, but the girl (Lettie? he thought) remembered suddenly that the master of the house wasn’t supposed to get to his feet on her account, and made a dash for the table to slip it under his elbow.

Felix clicked his tongue.

“Who did it come from?” asked Sylvain.

Lettie reddened. “I don’t know, but I can go and ask if-”

“Did they look nervous?” Sylvain turned the envelope over. The wax was unbroken, and there was no seal pressed into it. No surprise there. No one liked to sign their letters anymore.

“The messenger looked a little nervous.”

“Bad news?” Felix asked Sylvain.

“I don’t think it was bad nervous,” said Lettie, and shut her mouth when Felix looked at her.

“Let’s find out,” said Sylvain, and broke the wax in half. He scanned the sheets of paper, ink-spotted and scribbled in a rush. “Oh,” he said.

“What is it?” asked Felix.

“Oh. Oh _man_.”

“What?”

“Felix.”

“ _What_?”

“Felix, you’re gonna love this.”

“ _What is it_?”

“Our old friend Count Rowe,” said Sylvain, “went out to do Cornelia’s dirty work, like the traitor he is, and was absolutely annihilated.”

“He’s dead?” Felix’s gaze sharpened.

Sylvain flicked through the papers. “Not personally. But the Gray Lion is. Hey, did I ever tell you I once met-?”

“ _I’ve heard the story, Sylvain._ ”

“No need to yell. Your loss, anyway. It’s a good story.”

“No it isn’t. Who killed Gwendal? We don’t have anyone down there. Who were they fighting?” Felix reached for the report and Sylvain whisked it easily away.

He read it again, grinning all over his face. “Claude.”

Felix’s hand fell back down to his side. “The _Alliance_?”

“They were picking up soldiers in neutral territory. Soldiers!”

“So they’re making a move?”

Sylvain sat down, breathless with relief. “What else could it mean?” He laughed out loud, leaning back in his chair so hard it almost tipped backwards. “It’s finally happening. It took him five years but I knew he’d do it. I _knew_ he’d…” If Felix could find him here then Claude would have no trouble. He noticed Lettie still in the doorway, watching them both with puzzled, embarrassed eyes. “Does this place have a wine cellar?” he asked her.

“I think so?”

“Bust it open. We’re celebrating tonight.”

She bobbed a vague, relieved curtsey and scuttled off.

“Don’t get weird about this,” said Felix.

Sylvain’s mood was unsinkable. “Things are gonna change now. With the Alliance behind us-”

“Which they aren’t.”

“Yet. We’re on the same side.” Different sides of the war, Claude had said on the night Garreg Mach was attacked. Not any more.

Felix tried to slide the papers over to himself but Sylvain batted his hand away.

A name caught his eye.

“Wait,” he said. The joy turned cold inside him. He read more carefully. “Wait, no. No, no, no. This has to be wrong.” He turned the paper over, looking for something that would reverse the facts.

“What is it?” The exasperation was gone from Felix’s voice.

Sylvain looked up from the report and made himself say the words. “Ashe was there.”

*

There was a saying they had in Almyra, among the wyvern riders: “It’s not the arrow that kills you, it’s the fall.” Often followed by a thoughtful, “Well, sometimes it’s the arrow.” Claude had heard it so many times it had lost all meaning for him until now, in Ailell, where the ferocious heat of the rocks created the most incredible thermals and Sahar was having the time of her life. This was killing height. He could feel the air pushing up against Sahar’s wings, so strongly that he could believe that if he did lose his grip he’d just fall upwards.

Then another arrow whistled past him and his hands slid on Sahar’s scales as he ducked reflexively out of the way. Gravity’s maw opened beneath him and he knew definitively which way he’d fall if he lost his grip. A heart-shudder, a thigh-squeeze, a scrabble of fingers and he was back in the saddle. He pulled air into his scorched lungs, shook sweat and blood from his face, and, as Sahar wheeled sharply around, the shy, bookish kid from the Blue Lions shot at him again.

Judith's guys had not got tired of waiting for them.

The first sight of him had almost distracted Claude fatally in his panic to ensure that no other Blue Lions had come to disrupt his rendezvous, even though he’d known for years which side of the Faerghus divide Ashe had fallen onto. It had been too long since he’d heard from the rebels. He couldn’t be sure. But of course Sylvain wasn’t there.

Ashe had barely aged in the last five years. He’d combed his hair over in a different way to try to look older, but the attempt only made him look even more out of his depth here, and he was soaked with sweat as well, all his wiry muscles standing out when he drew his bow. He wasn’t out of his depth, despite his boyish looks, was the thing. No one could get near him.

Claude steered Sahar with his knees, settling his own bow in his hands.

No one could get near him? Then don’t go near him.

Another blast of hot air filled Sahar’s wings and Claude almost dropped an arrow, the jolt making the ash rattle in his throat. He forced patience on himself. Resettled the bow. Flew Sahar in another tight series of jinks and turns and made himself believe he wouldn’t be shot while he did it. Nocked the arrow.

Ashe followed him at arrowpoint, waiting for the chance.

Claude loosed and dropped to hug Sahar’s neck, panting and waiting for the retaliatory shot. Closer, this time. It burned across his back.

He blinked more sweat out of his eyes and sat upright, ready to do it all again.

But he’d hit - and good. Ashe was down, curled around the arrow so Claude couldn’t see where it had caught him.

_Now stay put_ , he thought.

When Claude had been a disobedient Almyran boy whose energy was all turned to hunting out every loophole in every rule he was expected to live by, he had once been caught sending one of the servant boys out to poison a rival. Nothing major, just a little payback for the nights Claude himself had spent in misery, hacking up his guts and learning his place at court the hard way. His father had come to confront him about it and Claude waited with his wrists out and his legs ready and warmed up to run off his sentence behind the horse again, but this time it didn’t come.

“The boy said he didn’t know what he was doing,” his father had said.

“I told him what to do,” Claude - Khalid then - had replied, half in defiance.

“He didn’t know he was taking poisoned sweets. He was quite sure he was making overtures of peace between my children, and he would be rewarded.”

Khalid had learned already by then never to tell anyone else his full plans.

“Which is why he offered some to his elderly mother.”

Khalid was quickly learning never to entrust his plans in any capacity to people who were stupid.

“That’s not how we do things,” said his father. He emphasised the ‘we’ very slightly, as though there was a ‘they’ out there too. Khalid knew now who ‘they’ were, and that his father hadn’t wanted to disparage his wife’s people in front of her. Khalid’s mother’s people. Khalid’s people. “We don’t send people to take risks for us without telling them what they’re doing.”

Even then Khalid knew that these were rules for people whose places in the world were less complicated than his.

“We don’t ask people to do things we wouldn’t do ourselves.”

Claude had ignored a lot of his father’s received wisdom quite happily in the years that followed, but that one had always stuck with him.

_We don’t ask people to do things we wouldn’t do ourselves._

Ashe writhed on the steaming ground. Claude pulled Sahar into a hover and drew his bow.

*

“What was he doing there?”

“Fighting under Lord Gwendal.”

“That idiot. Why?”

“It’s where he came from. All his contacts were that side of the country, in Gaspard. And without Lord Lonato, there was only Count Rowe…”

“ _Idiot_.”

“What else was he gonna do? By the time we knew what was going on, he was already tangled up in it.”

“What happened to him in Ailell?”

“It doesn't say, but he... he didn’t make it home.”

*

The echo of Byleth’s shout rang around the valley. Calling him off.

Claude let the bowstring relax and the arrow drop. It fell from suddenly numb fingers to clatter on the ground below. He drifted in the air on Sahar’s white back in the incredible thermal, like a spirit without a body, as the Golden Deer regrouped and the reinforcements finally came, led by Judith herself. He watched, distantly, as Byleth picked her way through the glassed rocks and plumes of steam to Ashe, and crouched down beside him. Her mouth to his ear, the pearl glow of magic, her hand to his hand and he got to his feet. Time running backwards.

He never did find out what she said to him.

But he didn’t argue when they brought him back to Garreg Mach with them.


	5. Cross Purposes

“I bet you’re wishing you’d done something about Acheron months ago,” said Judith.

“I won’t say the thought hasn’t occurred to me,” admitted Claude. “But no point in regrets now. Anyway, I thought he was incompetent, not a traitor.” Not even he had considered the possibility that Lord Acheron would turn around and announce his loyalty to Adrestia after the victory at Ailell.

“You didn’t think he was a little too friendly to the bandits in his territory?”

“Bandits aren’t the Empire.”

They paused to let a little parade of monks pass, carrying books and statues over the bridge to the cathedral. Some good had come of the fiasco at Ailell. Claude had lost the element of surprise, but his hand had been tipped to allies as well as enemies. The monastery was more alive than before, monks and priests come back to roost like doves in perfect safety. Even more of a reason to be baffled by Acheron’s change of allegiance - what kind of witless fool would choose now to show his true colours? _Edelgard must have something on him_ , thought Claude. And she must have something planned that his actions in Ailell had made more urgent. Was that good? Bad? He’d have to wait and see.

And branching off from that thought - a sign to Sylvain that he was still here and still working. _You know what to do. Come over, under the guise of a treaty. Make us your allies. Be here._

“You seem pretty happy here, anyway,” he said. “Spending time in the company of a delinquent Duke.”

“Someone’s got to keep an eye on you.”

“I’ll be on my best behaviour. Would you believe it if I told you that your being here was playing into my hands?” he asked teasingly.

“No.”

“Well, you’re right.” He leaned over the wall and watched the soldiers fly their pegasi and wyverns, carrying messages or just letting them stretch their wings. “I would never have thought you’d leave Daphnel at a time like this.”

Judith stopped beside him. “I wouldn’t have without that capable retainer of yours.”

Claude shot her a sly look. “If I’d known you were in such need I’d have got you one of your own. You’re only borrowing Nardel, let me be clear.”

“We’ll see.”

“I don’t think I like that tone.”

Judith brushed stonedust from the side of the bridge, the new walls still bright and their edges sharp. “We’ll see where he wants to lay his allegiance when this is all over, shall we?”

“Are you _planning_ something? Judith!”

“You aren’t the only one who can scheme, boy.”

“I wasn't prepared for a competition!”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

Claude grinned, conceding the point. “I guess not. What have you promised him?”

“Anything he needs,” said Judith. “Men? He has them. Is he hungry? The pick of my stores is his. Is his bed not comfortable enough? He can take mine.” She smiled hungrily out at the mountains. “The offer extends after I return to Daphnel.”

“Judith!”

“Women have needs, boy. You’ll learn all about it when you’re older.”

“You know the Goddess can probably hear you, right? The monks can definitely hear you.”

“I didn’t realise you were so pious.”

“Hey, while the Church of Seiros is providing us with food, shelter and soldiers, their happiness is my top priority.” Judith and Nader, though. This was unforeseen. “I’m kind of regretting sending you and Nardel out to distract Gloucester together now,” he said. “Just promise me you won’t get lost in his eyes or... whatever it is you see in him.”

Her reply was a throaty laugh.

There was something in Judith that reminded Claude of his mother. A self-assurance, a knowledge about the world and her place in it that nobody else had. Judith and his mother both knew exactly who they were, and liked it. If Judith knew who “Nardel” really was, would she follow him to Almyra? She wasn’t his mother; he didn’t think she would. Her ties to Daphnel were part of that fundamental core of her. She might convince Nader to stay in Fódlan though.

“Speaking of our old friend Count Gloucester,” said Judith, “how’s his boy holding up? It can’t be easy for him.”

"He's dealing as well as he can," said Claude. "He's been pouring his heart out to pretty much everyone who isn't me."

"Is he conflicted?"

"Understandably."

"Is he going to be trouble?"

"You know?" said Claude, almost surprising himself to realise it, "I don't think he is. I'd rather not leave him too long alone with his thoughts or anything, but I think he'll be okay. I walked in on Lysithea giving him a hard time the other day, because of course she's standing in opposition to House Ordelia on all this."

"Ah, the little one. The spitfire."

"That's her. She was telling him how easy it was, how he should just stop caring what people thought, all that. I had the fun job of explaining to her that House Ordelia is a much smaller player in the great game, and gets away with a lot more than House Gloucester ever could. House Ordelia's precocious genius daughter gets to be eccentric without affecting her House's standing. The heir to one of our biggest border territories doesn't. And especially not with a family like that."

"And how did that go?"

"Eh, I'm sure she'll forgive me one day." Maybe after the war. Or after the sun had burned out.

"You sound close to the Gloucester boy," said Judith. "But I've never seen you together."

Claude winked. "Oh, no, I read his letters."

She frowned at him. "Claude!"

"Oh, _this_ is your line? You just told me you were going to seduce my favourite retainer out from under my nose. In wartime, no less. And me your liege lord."

She didn't take the bait. "You're a cold boy."

"I do what I have to do." He shrugged, still smiling. "I don't shed blood unless I really need to. This is the trade-off."

She didn't look happy with his explanation. The force of her reaction in general was a surprise, actually. Well, maybe it was time to ease off on his mail-stealing habit. If he was caught, it would damage his standing irreparably, and he had to admit, he hadn’t found anything yet to make the ongoing gamble worthwhile. "Speaking of which, how is your prisoner?" she asked.

"He's not my prisoner," said Claude.

"Then what is he?"

"I don't know yet."

*

Sylvain reined his horse in and pulled his lance up, panting for breath. Typical of Cornelia to wait until they were so low on winter supplies before she made her little move. Nothing major, just another raiding party trying to draw them out and succeeding. Trying to wear them down and succeeding. How did she always know where they were?

He heard Felix yell from across the field.

“Felix!” he shouted back, “if you’re so set on us dying together could you consider that _today isn’t a good time for me_?”

“Sylvain, no-!”

Too late. Sylvain had spurred his horse across the fell, Crest thrumming, lance couched, and scattered friendly and hostile forces alike.

Felix flicked blood from his sword blade, glaring ungratefully. “Stay out of my way!”

There was a moment when a hundred skirmishes layered one over the other in Sylvain’s mind. How many times had they done this now? How many times had Felix shouted at him? This might be a memory or a dream. He’d lain awake so long last night, and every night he could remember. Maybe he’d finally just fallen asleep again.

The enemy wore Faerghus colours, and Sylvain had thought he was used to it by now, but the sight of a distant block of men melting into a hundred individual soldiers in the Fhirdiad royal guard uniform running over the heather still made him shy just for a second. This was new. She hadn’t sent the guard here before.

And he knew she had sent them. The Fhirdiad royal guard had been Cornelia’s for five years and he _knew_ it, but his muscles were sluggish and his reactions kept sloshing up against the opposing tide of a lifetime of loyalty, making him clumsy. The horse pranced in place. The traitors in their stolen uniforms were still coming.

“Sylvain!” snapped Felix, and Felix was charging at them, and Sylvain was fumbling the reins, and the horse danced backwards, and Felix had thrown himself right in there, sword flashing.

Sylvain swung his lance in a defensive sweep before they got to him, snatched up the reins and forged a path through the guards. He wouldn’t let Felix get himself isolated and overwhelmed. The horse reared and narrowly avoided an axe blow, and there was still too much space between them.

But Sylvain still had one trick up his sleeve. He reached for the fire. _That’ll scatter them_. He’d never used it in battle before, but the principle was the same. He found it between the air easily, and grabbed a handful of it.

He cried out in unexpected pain - his gauntlet glowed red-hot and he instinctively tried to pull away from it, only succeeding in knocking it against his already-burned hand. _This is why mages don’t wear metal_. The horse kicked out and Sylvain knew that all he could do now was hold on. If they got him off the horse, that was it. He held on with his thighs and when the horse bucked again he almost broke his nose on its flexed neck, pulled back hard and sudden. He kicked out himself against a grasping hand and didn’t even know if his foot had connected or not, his mind too occupied with the horse’s flailing and the persistent agonising burn in his hand. He swung his lance one-handed, almost flinging it away in his desperation, throwing out silver drops of steel from his gauntlet, and then the horse was cantering almost calmly, and his surroundings were clear. Felix paced with fluid movements, unhurried and poised, between Sylvain and the retreating enemy.

Sylvain fumbled in his saddlebag for the vulnerary he kept in there, uncorked it with his teeth and emptied it. The burning eased almost immediately to a bearable stinging itch. The gauntlet was already cooling. He snorted blood from his nose.

They’d outlasted the attack, or won, or something. It didn’t matter which as long as it was over. Cornelia could try to wear them down as much as she wanted - the Alliance and the Church were on the move now.

Felix turned around when he was sure of the retreat. “Sylvain!”

Sylvain raised a hand in response to show he was okay. Felix should know this by now, he thought, still floating on that post-battle high, terror become trembling euphoria.

“What the hell was that?”

He gave a sheepish shrug. He couldn’t find words yet.

“Are you okay?!”

A nod. The movement seemed to make the whole world shiver in and out of reality.

“What happened to your gauntlet?”

Sylvain glanced down to see it half-melted around his hand, now only pleasantly warm but irritating on his half-healed burn. "Magic isn’t as easy as it looks,” he said. His voice sounded distant. Everything sounded distant. “Just need another vulnerary. It’ll be fine.”

“You said you’d been practising,” said Felix accusingly, staring up at him, way up on his horse.

Sylvain had the absurd desire to reach down and ruffle Felix's hair. “I found the fire, didn’t I? It worked, didn't it?”

Felix grabbed at the warped gauntlet to get a better look and Sylvain hissed and pulled away. “Practising means simulating combat! It means moving in your armour, it means facing opponents, and you forgot about your _metal gauntlets_ so I know you haven't been training in any way worth the name!”

“So I’ll learn for next time,” said Sylvain.

“If you keep acting this recklessly, one day there won’t _be_ a next time.”

“You were in trouble.”

“I was not in trouble,” growled Felix. “I was handling myself fine, and not having to thwart your endless death wishes for once.”

Sylvain looked down at him from his horse. Something in Felix’s voice was serious this time. A little too close to the bone. “Not for much longer,” he said. “The Alliance is arming itself. Claude’ll come for us soon.”

He knew how Felix felt about this. He knew Felix didn't have a thought to spare for the developments down south. Felix thought all hope based outside their territories would get them all killed, and Sylvain's hopes were the worst of all because of where they came from. But this time Felix just shook his head and looked away, up to the low clouds, dark and solid, keeping the sun out. When he spoke it was with resignation more than anger. "Then could you do me one favour and at least try to survive till he does?”

*

Ashe was alone in the infirmary when Claude hunted him out at last, unable to put it off any longer. He was sitting on a bed, staring out of the window at the overcast sky like an unbroken white slice out of the wall, a picture of stillness that belied his lethal assassin’s speed.

"No hard feelings?" said Claude.

Ashe jumped at the sound of his voice. Wary. Ashamed. "I'm sorry," he said, and didn't say what for.

"It's all forgotten," said Claude, though it wasn't. "You still sore?"

"A little."

"I hope it’s not too bad." Sylvain was always sore after a healing. Claude wondered where he was now, what state he was in. Whole or healed or...

Ashe nodded vaguely, all thief's fingers and orphan eyes - archer-calloused fingers and hawk’s eyes - and he lowered his gaze to his knees. "I can't believe I… I'm just so sorry."

"What's done is done."

"But I almost-"

"And I almost right back at you.” He sat beside Ashe on the bed. Ashe jumped a little, but didn’t move away. “Look. Teach says you're in, so you're in." She hadn't really, in so many words, said anything at all about it. But that just made her trust all the clearer. _This is how things are now_ , her actions said. She involved Ashe in the running of the monastery as much as the rest of them. She stopped him to talk when she saw him. And if Byleth trusted him, as he'd said to Judith, then he didn't think he had much of a choice in the matter.

"A lot can change in five years," Judith had replied darkly.

"And who knows that better than me?"

Back in the present, he said, casually, “I assume you’re planning on staying.”

“I suppose I… I don’t have anywhere else to…” Ashe stopped suddenly, panic flitting across his face.

“I know the situation in Faerghus isn’t great,” said Claude, redirecting him from the jagged fact that he had been on the wrong side. That wasn’t what he was interested in, and though Ashe’s clumsiness in navigating it all was charming and even oddly reassuring, there were more important things to find out. What Ashe could do for him, for one. “You’re welcome to stay, as I said, and if you want to leave, I can arrange whatever you need.”

Ashe shook his head. “I’ll stay.”

“Then welcome to the family.”

Ashe continued to stare into things only he could see, lost in thoughts that he'd never confide in Claude for a variety of very good reasons.

"I don't suppose you've seen much of the other old Blue Lions recently," said Claude at last.

The briefest look flashed across Ashe’s face, in which he inadvertently revealed what kind of situation he thought he found himself in, and what kind of person he thought Claude was.

“Just making conversation,” said Claude. _Not fishing for intel. Not that kind of intel, anyway._

When Ashe spoke again, he sounded that hangdog about it that Claude wondered if he thought he was giving up his old classmates to an enemy. “Mercedes joined a church, I think. I don’t know where. Annette was in Fhirdiad five years ago, but not for long. She vanished just before everything…”

Claude nodded.

“And His Highness…”

“Right,” said Claude, to spare him.

“Oh, of course you’d know.”

“Edelgard wanted everyone to know.”

“I don’t know what happened to Dedue, though. I haven’t heard from him at all.” He huddled a little further into himself. “I liked him.”

“Guy from Duscur?” Probably Duscur was his only option after losing Dimitri. And not a great option. “I’m sure he can take care of himself.” He’d come here to try to size Ashe up, but now that he was here it felt cruel to prod at him like this.

“I suppose you know all about the others too,” mumbled Ashe.

“Not as much as I’d like.”

“Ingrid and Felix and” - a minute pause - “Sylvain.”

Claude didn’t bother hiding it. He held Ashe’s gaze when it flickered in his direction. Was that realisation he saw? Presumably the Blue Lions had gossiped as much as the Golden Deer, in their buttoned-up way.

“Do you want me to pass on a message?” Ashe asked. _Can I be useful to you?_ he was pleading.

Claude considered. It was a tempting offer. The letter wrote itself: _Hold out just a little longer. I’m going to take Myrddin and then I’m going to fly north and take you._

But from here to Gautier was a long way for a letter to go unintercepted.

“Better not right now,” he said.

He considered, leaving the infirmary, that maybe Ashe’s misery was due to guilt of another kind. He might still be working on Count Rowe’s behalf, and unable to reconcile it with his conscience. Eh. Not very convincing. Didn’t make sense.

_You’re losing your touch, Riegan_ , he thought.

Things were moving faster and faster. He told himself that was the reason he was so restless - the blossoming of more and more variables into his plans, ever more pieces on the game board - and not the fact that he had a Blue Lion in his base of operations, right under his nose, and it wasn’t the one he wanted.

Every day the monastery was looking more like it had before the attack. The stables were full, the greenhouse was blooming, the pondweed had been skimmed off and the pond restocked with enough fish to satisfy Leonie, Seteth and Alois’s hobbies all at once. Now, when Claude passed dark corners and locked doors, he recognised them for the places they had once been to him. Lightning sense-images of memory. Cold stones, warm hands. Buzz of whisper, tickle of sigh. Crashing and thumping around like cats at midnight.

And why _shouldn’t_ he have Sylvain here instead of Ashe, kept somewhere only Claude knew, strung up by his wrists from the ceiling just enough to show off the length of his body? Claude would come in and see him lift his head in the sudden light, baring his neck and belly to his captor and grinning all over his face. He’d be roughed up a little, but not maliciously. Just in the course of business. Just enough to improve his looks. Claude would pull on the rope holding him up and stretch him out a little more, and a little more. Till he was on his toes, and driving himself crazy to know what was coming. And Claude would get in close to him and the first thing he’d say would be, _So, you thought you could bet on someone who wasn’t me, huh? And how did that turn out for you?_

And Sylvain would get that look on his face that he got when he found something new, whenever someone showed him a new way to see himself.

There was no one around to see Claude shivering with the need of it, reaching for the handle of a door that nobody knew but him.


	6. Best Laid Plans

Claude looked out from the Great Bridge of Myrddin - his bridge, now - at the Airmid River at its widest point, water rushing forever to a sea that would never be full.

Winning his battle here was a far cry from the victory at Ailell. There was no hasty retreat to be beaten out of the seething mouth of hell. Ashe had fired arrows for him, not at him. He had fought for the bridge, and he’d won the bridge, and now there were bodies laid out under cloaks and banners and anything they could find, and they weren’t going to go away until they were buried.

“You did well.” An unexpected voice.

Claude looked up from the river at Seteth, who was standing stiffly with his arms behind his back. He’d seen Seteth reach out to struggling students in his Academy days, gruff and awkwardly paternal, his advice gentle and given almost shyly. He’d never reached out to Claude in that way. Why now? Did he look so terrible?

“Not well enough,” he said.

Ferdinand von Aegir was under one of those sheets. Claude hadn’t seen it happen and he hadn’t asked about it. Byleth hadn’t intervened. She must have had her reasons. Maybe she hadn’t seen it happen either. Maybe he’d offended her. Maybe he’d refused her offer.

“It is a sad affair,” said Seteth, “but that does not diminish your achievement.”

“And yet the bridge is stones and mortar, and Ferdinand was a life.” _Stop antagonising him. He’s going to be annoyed enough when he finds out what you’re planning._ “I guess this isn’t the first time you’ve lost a student - former student - though, is it?” he asked, before Seteth could respond. “I mean, it’s the Officer’s Academy, not a knitting circle.”

“It is not the first time,” said Seteth. “Though never like this.”

Marianne flitted like a wraith between the rows of sheets and tattered flags, commending souls to the Goddess, giving them some kind of dignity as best she could.

“The battlefield is no place to die,” said Claude. “Give me sixty more years and a feather bed.”

They were supposed to retreat. They were supposed to see that they were outmatched and go running off with their tails between their legs to tell tales of the Alliance’s army, not foolishly dig in their heels and get themselves killed. And what for? Their country? Their ideals? Edelgard? A bridge? Nothing at all, thought Claude, because in the end he’d won, and the bridge was his, and they were dead, and no use to their country or Edelgard now. They were dead, and the dead had no ideals.

Compare with Count Rowe of the so-called Faerghus Dukedom, who had given up his own fortress as soon as he realised which way the wind was blowing. Cowardly, unprincipled, treacherous, but the loss of life it had avoided was considerable, perhaps unimaginable. Not only in the defence and taking of the fortress itself, but with the loss of it, almost the entire rest of Faerghus had accepted Cornelia’s rule meek as lambs. There was something almost admirable about it.

Not to Sylvain, though, who hadn’t accepted Cornelia’s rule, who had been personally betrayed by Count Rowe’s actions on the battlefield, and whose survival of it could not be taken for granted.

So who was right?

“Your feelings do you credit,” said Seteth gently. “As do your actions. Your ploy to distract Count Gloucester avoided a great deal of unnecessary bloodshed. It was well done, worthy of a much more seasoned general.”

Claude forced a smile. “That’s a high compliment coming from the Church. You’re the real masters at playing people off against each other.” He glanced at Seteth, who was maintaining a carefully neutral expression. “I’ve read my history.”

“I, too, am something of a scholar of history,” said Seteth. “You won’t get a rise out of me.”

Back on comfortable ground. “Everyone needs an unreachable goal," he replied without missing a beat. "Makes life worth living.”

Cyril was running around the bridge too, helping out, getting the forces established, doing all of the little practical things that generals never bothered with or wrote down in their memoirs, the things historians never added to their chronicles. Sorting through the stores and the armouries, hauling out the non-combatants from the stables and kitchens and making them aware of their new circumstances and the limited options available to them. Cyril did it all without complaint, because he was doing it for the Church, not for Claude. Talk about an unreachable goal, Claude thought.

“We are closer to the Archbishop than ever before,” said Seteth, changing the subject or perhaps pondering his own unreachable goals.

“We probably are.”

“We will do what we can here, and then push further into Imperial territory to find her.”

“No,” said Claude.

Seteth’s voice shed its softness. “Excuse me?”

“We’re not leaving Myrddin undefended,” said Claude, his own energy rising in response. “I’m not letting them just take it back after how we took it. Judith’s going to hold the bridge, and that means we’re short half an army, which will need to stay with her. Add to that the fact that Count Gloucester’s probably discovered my little ruse, and he’ll be crying out to have my head until Lorenz softens him up ready to be convinced that I’ve just saved his lands from the Empire. Add to that the fact that a not-inconsiderable proportion of the Alliance would happily see me strung up on Count Gloucester’s word or less, because they like me about as much as you do.”

“I do not appreciate-”

_Yeah, well here’s something you really won’t appreciate._ “Even if you knew exactly where the Archbishop was, we’re in no position to get her out right now.”

“An interesting use of ‘we’,” Seteth observed.

“Sure, I suppose the Church isn’t really interested in Alliance problems. Understandable. We can be tedious and argumentative. You really think this is how I want to be spending my time? Touring the Leicester Alliance with a begging bowl? You think I want to be in a position where I have to hope that what we did here” - he gestured at the lines of bodies under their makeshift winding sheets - “impresses a room of stingy, merchant-hearted old counts enough that they’ll finally deign to stop conspiring to overthrow me?”

“I am aware of the difficulties of your position,” said Seteth. As if anyone would ever dare to think about overthrowing _him_.

But of course the Church had its own web of alliances and tensions, ambitious regional arms of it rising up regularly above their stations and needing to be put down in swift, bloody pre-emptive actions. What were the Knights of Seiros really for, after all? Claude really had learned his history, and he knew that probably someone had coveted Seteth’s power at one time or another.

They’d at least be respectful enough not to do it in front of his face, though.

“You know, I don’t even mind that you don’t like me,” he said. “I get it. You have good reasons. I’d be annoyed by me too, in your position. But…” He caught himself just in time. Of all the people to pour his heart out to. “We’re going to find the archbishop,” he said at last. “You have my word on that. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

Seteth studied him with eyes that seemed to weigh his soul against an unknown measure. “The professor trusts you. I will be patient.” A little more time bought. It was getting more expensive every time. “We are on the same side, ultimately, Claude.”

Claude half-smiled and leaned against the side of his bridge. Nobody was ever really on the same side as anyone else. But they were going in the same direction for now.

*

The spring rain came to sluice the moorland of Faerghus clean of its winter growth. The becks and streams lacing through it swelled with muddy torrents off the hillsides, and you couldn’t ride a horse without sinking it up to its knees. There was nowhere in the castle where the rain wasn’t present, as a grey curtain through the windows, as a coldness in the wind, as a whisper behind everything.

Not even the Empire would risk their soldiers’ feet and horses’ legs today, thought Sylvain dully. Another day when nothing would change, and the clouds were too low to see if the wyverns were flying.

The castle was full of pacing soldiers. The Alliance was readying itself for war, moving inexorably in the wrong direction, and the rebels were stuck inside, in the middle of a silent, still landscape, like flies in honey. There was no errand left to run. There was no weapon left to polish.

There had to be someone out there just as bored as him, thought Sylvain, legs bouncing. No one would want to rust up their gear in the training grounds and every girl in the kitchens was wise to him, but there had to be _someone_. If they’d still been down in Tasha’s castle he wouldn’t have this problem. If Claude could get on with his real work instead of getting distracted collecting bridges, he wouldn't have this problem.

The raindrops fell like the days of siege, each one slightly different to the others, but forming a long, unbroken sameness when viewed from a distance. The flare of energy he’d taken from the news of Ailell had long since burned itself out. If things were changing, it was slowly. If Claude was coming, it wasn’t yet. He kept playing with the idea of going to Garreg Mach himself. He could convince his father it would be a good idea to make contact, and that he was a good choice for it. _I know the Duke_ , he could say, and it wouldn’t be a lie. _We were close at the Academy._

“Sylvain,” announced Felix from behind him, and Sylvain was almost happy to hear his voice.

“Yeah?”

“News.”

Sylvain sank his head in his hands. “How bad?”

“Ashe was seen near Garreg Mach. He’s fine.”

Sylvain sat up again. “What? Who saw him?”

Felix sat beside him. “Someone in Galatea.”

“Wait, we’re in contact with _Galatea_ now?”

“Apparently,” replied Felix, disinterested.

“Ingrid?”

“How should I know?”

_Do you know what this means?_ Sylvain wanted to yell at him, but it wouldn’t make any difference.

“So you can stop worrying,” said Felix, as though it was merely a matter of resolving his personal annoyance.

There was no point in trying to explain it to him. Sylvain sighed, half-resigned, half-relieved. “Garreg Mach, huh. So he joined up with the Alliance.” _That’s precedent_ , he thought. _I could go down there._

“He’s lucky they let him. Better than he deserves.”

Sylvain paused to make sure he’d heard correctly. “We’re talking about Ashe,” he said with a hint of warning.

“We’re talking about someone who turned his back on his people, and then switched sides again when things got difficult.”

“No,” said Sylvain. “Not ‘someone’. _Ashe_.” Ashe, who had let Sylvain hide out from spurned lovers in his room back in the Academy, who had piled responsibilities on himself to try to repay his debt to the lord who had lifted him so easily out of poverty, who Ashe had idolised despite his mediocrity.

“I’m supposed to let him off because we were students together?”

“Let him off what?” Sylvain turned in his chair, but Felix was staring obstinately ahead. “I don’t get you sometimes.”

“What is there to get?” snapped Felix.

“Why do you care?” asked Sylvain. “You make this big lone wolf song and dance about how you don’t need anyone, and you’re going to refuse your inheritance, and anyone who believes in chivalry is dead to you, so really, why does it matter to you which side Ashe was on?”

“So you think it doesn’t matter?”

“I never said that,” said Sylvain. “I know what I think. He was in an unlucky situation and he got out, and I don’t care how he got out, I’m just glad he did. It’s you I don’t get. Felix… Why are you here at all?”

He would have given a lot to know what was going on behind Felix's furious eyes, trying to burn holes into him.

_Stare me out all you want. I don't care._

"At the end of the day," said Sylvain, "you don't have to tell me. I know it's none of my business. But if you can't answer that question for yourself, you're never going to have a moment's peace in your life."

The anger flared, became outrage, became _how dare you_ , and Sylvain weathered it because he knew that whatever it was that Felix hated so much, it wasn’t him.

He watched it build and build, and then Felix shot to his feet and Sylvain was right behind him, the words on his tongue: _I can fight this out if you want, Felix, just gives me something to do on a rainy day_ , but Felix had dropped his rage and was looking at something beyond Sylvain's shoulder.

"Sylvain," he whispered, and if Sylvain hadn't known any better he'd have thought Felix had somehow grown paler, was somehow terrified, though neither thing was possible.

He turned to see Lord Rodrigue enter the hall at a dazed, dreamlike pace, and beside him Gilbert, obviously fresh from the road. Annette paced beside him with her hood down around her shoulders and her hair bright in the cobweb-dark - Annette! - and following them all some people he didn't… No. No, he did know them.

Felix grabbed his wrist hard, pleading, and Sylvain gripped him back.

The only thing recognisable about Dimitri was Dedue looming behind him.

At first Sylvain thought it was the distance making him hard to recognise, but that shadow across his face was an eyepatch, and the sunken cheeks and dark-ringed eye weren’t tricks of the light. He wore wolfskin and shook his shaggy hair out of his face, and as his good eye scanned the room with the uncomprehending suspicion of a wild animal, Sylvain saw with sudden clarity the exact trajectory that had led from there to here - from the Dimitri of five years ago, last seen all but tearing out throats on the smoking ashes of Garreg Mach, to this. Even as he watched, Dimitri’s eye flicked to the space in the air he’d talked to back then, when he didn’t care if anyone was watching.

Left in a cage all that time, with no one but himself for company.

The whole hall had fallen silent by now, making the footsteps of the odd, awe-inspiring party echo with a historic sonorousness. 

_Back from the dead_ , Sylvain thought. Not ‘escaped death’. He looked like they’d killed him all right, and he’d fought his way back out of hell on the strength of his rage and hatred alone.

Lord Rodrigue stopped in the centre of the empty space and readied himself to speak.

“I’m gonna need you on your absolute best behaviour right now, okay?” Sylvain whispered. “If you need to hit someone, please hit me.”

“Shut up,” Felix hissed back.

“I present to you His Majesty,” Lord Rodrigue began.

Sylvain knew he should be paying attention but he couldn’t stop staring at Dimitri, the way he’d keep an eye on a wasp in the room. He dimly registered Lord Rodrigue’s use of the king’s title, not the prince’s, but mostly he was wondering whether Dimitri had lost his eye before he’d broken out of whatever dungeon Cornelia had been keeping him in or after, and which would be worse.

Felix kept a tight grip on him all the while, hard enough to bruise, and Sylvain focused on it, grateful for the distraction. Something to keep him anchored to his own body and stop him from getting utterly lost in the icy wastelands that lay behind Dimitri’s eye.

The hall erupted in cheers, catching Sylvain off-guard. He must look like a newly-landed fish, gaping blankly.

_This is what you wanted_ , he thought, and forced himself to concentrate. Everything was movement around him.

Dimitri spoke for the first time. “She’s on the move to Fort Merceus.” His voice was lower than Sylvain remembered, a venomous growl. “We’ll intercept her and put her out of her misery. Prepare yourselves for the ride out.”

Lord Rodrigue turned to him, subtly and quickly. “With all due respect, Your Majesty.”

Even from halfway across the room, Sylvain cringed under the weight of all Lord Rodrigue’s due respect.

“We’ve been effectively under siege for five years. We have very little in the way of supplies.”

“Then we’ll travel lighter and faster.”

“And if we could wait for our allies to arrive, then-”

“We’ll pick them up on the way.”

“Your Majesty-”

“I will not be questioned.”

Sylvain had never heard anyone talk to Lord Rodrigue this way, not even Felix. But Lord Rodrigue just nodded, a little brusquely. “Very well.” He looked back out at the hall. “You have your orders.”

They left, leaving Sylvain and his spinning head to sit down again, surrounded by chatter, Felix like a black hole of sound beside him, silence in human shape.

Annette waved shyly as she passed, and Sylvain dredged up a faint smile and a wink from somewhere.

Dedue had eyes only for Dimitri. At one time Sylvain had been glad to know he was there, but now he was marked by the years as well, and there was no comfort left in him anymore. Wherever Dimitri was now, he was there alone.

“South.”

It didn’t even register as a word to Sylvain, just a sound, until Felix spoke again and Sylvain’s brain caught up.

“We’re heading south.”

“Oh, you’re coming too, are you?” With Dimitri gone, the air began to return to the room. He nudged Felix with his shoulder and Felix thumped him back hard. Movement. Change. Now. Already his mind was softening the stark memory of Dimitri’s face, blurring the horror of it in the anticipation of finally doing something.

“It doesn’t look like we have much of a choice,” said Felix.

“There’s always a choice,” said Sylvain, though he knew he’d never take it.

_They need you and you won’t leave them. That’s not who you are_ , Claude had told him before they’d parted, as if pronouncing it made it true. And hadn’t it? He was still here.

“We’ll see Ingrid again,” said Felix.

“Yeah,” said Sylvain, and he was smiling now, just the tiniest green shoot of a smile like an unfurled leaf after a long winter, less even, the first crack of a seed beneath the ground. “Guess we will. Think she’ll be glad to see us?”

“Me, maybe.”

“Once she’s retaught you all your table manners.”

Felix went to hit him again, but Sylvain caught his arm and ruffled Felix’s hair with his free hand in a way he hadn’t done since they were kids, and which felt now a little like putting his hand in a demonic beast’s mouth as a party trick. Felix twisted out of his grip, slid over the bench, feinted to the side and came back in lightning fast and stopped with his fist at Sylvain’s throat. Great restraint, for Felix. The message was clear: _You should be ready to fight for real._

Sylvain batted him away. “Okay, I get it.”

“Take it seriously.”

“I said I get it.”

“It’s really happening. You heard the boar prince.”

“The boar _king_ , Felix, honestly, do you ever pay attention?”

Felix wrinkled his nose in disgust. “He hasn’t been crowned.”

“Oh, sure, you’ll march to Adrestia and skewer Edelgard on his command, but Goddess forbid he claim a _title_ -”

“If you’re so desperate for a king to serve then don’t let me stop you.”

“You are the weirdest person I’ve ever met.”

The high spirits passed like a breeze through the hall and vanished just as quickly, leaving Sylvain feeling nervy and empty, quivery-tense like he was stretched out reaching for the tail-end of the moment that had gone, just to hold on to it. _Claude’s gonna have to be patient a little longer._

“So we just go to Merceus and finish it?” Felix asked. "Do you think this is really going to be the end?"

“I think it has to be,” said Sylvain. “One way or another.”


End file.
